Ipod Shuffle 08/02/07

Thursday iPod Shuffle...

1. Just to Hold You Once Again - Mairah Carey
2. P.E.T.R.O.L. - Orbital
3. Vanishing Point - New Order
4. L'Enfer - Kyo
5. Elle Dort - Francis Cabrel
6. Now This Is Fun - Depeche Mode
7. My Drug - Love & Rockets
8. I've Got Mine - UB40
9. In A Little While - U2
10. Rolling Down - K-Maro

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Ipod Shuffle 07/26/07

Today's Thursday iPod Shuffle...

1. Symphony No 12 (KV 110) in G Major Allegro - Mozart
2. Bad - U2
3. Tout Au Bout De Nos Peines - Isabelle Boulay
4. Walking Away - Information Society
5. Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
6. Fat Boy - Jewel
7. All I Want Is You - U2
8. I Used to Love Him - Lauryn Hill
9. Symphony No 6 IV Allegro - Beethoven
10. Karma - Alicia Keys

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Ipod Shuffle 07/19/07

Here's today's iPod Shuffle...

1. Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
2. Swamp - Talking Heads
3. Presque Rien - Francis Cabrel
4. Down So Long - Jewel
5. I'm Looking for a New Love - Jody Watley
6. Symphony B in B Flat Major - Allegro Molto - Franz Joseph Haydn
7. Touched by the Hand of God - New Order
8. Qu'est-ce Que Ca Te Foute - K-Maro
9. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Serenade in G Major, K. 525 Movement 1 - Mozart
10. Wild Honey - U2

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Ipod Shuffle 07/12/07

Oops, yesterday was Thursday. Totally forgot Thursday iPod Shuffle...

1. Dormir Debout - Francis Cabrel
2. A.M. 2 P.M. - Christina Milian
3. Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads
4. Tainted Love - Soft Cell
5. Better Man - Pearl Jam
6. Soar - Christina Aguilera
7. Animal - Francis Cabrel
8. Impossible - Christina Aguilera
9. Pictures - System of a Down
10. Les Lignes De Nos Mains - Patricia Kaas

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Ipod Shuffle 07/05/07

Here's Thursday's iPod Shuffle...

Back in Black - AC/DC
Love for Sale - Talking Heads
The Great Unknown - Dar Willams
Romanza - Andrea bocelli
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Brooklyn's Finest - JayZ
Too Late - No Doubt
Sinfonie Nr. 5 B-dur 3. Menuett Allegro Molto - Franz Schubert
Contribution - Jurassic5
Open Your Heart - Madonna

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Ipod Shuffle 06/28/07

This week's iPod Shuffle...

1. L'abbé Caillou - Patricia Kaas
2. Tu Me Corresponds - Francis Cabrel
3. Something 2 Dance 2 - NWA
4. South of the Border - Chris Isaak
5. Paranoimia - Art of Noise
6. Then the Morning Comes - Smash Mouth
7. Raindrops - Stunt
8. Listen to your Heart - Roxette
9. Sonate Pour Violoncelle et Piano, Op 19, Andante - Sergei Rachmaninov
10. Nowhere Girl - B-Movies

I thought I'd share one of my favorite Francis Cabrel songs, Encore et Encore. This is a live acoustic version.
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Other neato mosquito stuff I've stumbled upon...
A little add-on for Mozilla Firefox to download (YouTube, etc) videos.

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I received an invite to Ravelry last week (only just noticed it tonight). No clue how I got invited. I never submitted my name. So I can only assume that someone else did this. Had no idea what it was about, so I checked it out. Looks like a neato mosquito knitting project/pattern/stash/anythingyoucanthinkof organizing site. I need to explore the site further when I have more time.

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M's first big bop....

Little M had her first big bop on the head today. She was walking in the living room, lost her balance and hit her head on the coffee table. The nastiest bruise showed up immediately to the right of her left eye. DH was with her in the living room when this happened and he said it looked painful. Thank goodness I didn't actually see this happen. But I heard her wail from the other side of the house. We're surprised that she hasn't bopped her head this hard until now, over a year after she started walking. We were so sure it would have happened much earlier.

Anyhowz, I just realized that I had no ice packs in the freezer. So to improvise, I put some frozen peas and put them into a zip lock bag. That seemed to work a bit after we distracted M with some string cheese, cuz she wanted to eat the peas. And we made a little game of having her hold the peas against the bruise while she counted to 10 or said her ABCs.

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House update...

The two window measurers have stopped by to do their measuring. Yes, for whatever reason, one company (I think it was the Graber shutters) had their own measurers. Our Hunter Douglas blinds are ordered ($2250 for 8 windows). Our Graber shutters are ordered ($2270 for 3 windows). How is it that 3 shutters costs about the same as 8 blinds? Thank goodness we didn't do shutters for the bedroom windows...

We were asked where we wanted the controls for the blinds... which side for the Lifting and which side for Tilting. DH couldn't care less which side they went on. I had no idea which way people choose for these things, but I decided that I would probably use Tilt more often than Lift. Assuming this, I chose the Tilt controls to be closest to me as I walk towards the window/room. It seemed logical to me. However it might be the opposite of what most people choose. I dunno.

We went with a Wand to tilt the vertical blinds. DH prefered the pull strings for the horizontal blinds. I had a slight preference for the Wand, partly due to having little M running loose in the house. We chose the pull strings after the sales person told us that the cords snapped apart easily at the bottom. Anyhowz, if it looks like a problem, I think I'll just find a way to tie up the cord at the top where it is out of reach. I don't really see us lifting the blinds all that much anyways. We have horizontal blinds in our living room right now and I can't remember the last time I ever lifted them; we always tilt them to let in light.

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On the computer front ...

We've been trying to install an OS on an old Toshiba Tecra 8000. One would normally think of this as a basic task. However this particular laptop has no CD ROM drive (don't know what happened to it), but it does have a floppy drive. Most OS installers are no longer available for floppy drives. So we went for Debian 4.0 which could be installed over the network. Well that went OK! Yay! So given than we managed to install Debian over the network, this means that the network card (in this case, a PCMCIA card & dongle) is functional. Fast forward a little bit to the reboot after the Debian install, and we discover that we no longer have network/internet access. Don't know what happened. Tried MANY different things, no luck. It's such an odd problem. Gotta love computers. They should just work!!!

Hmm... maybe a different Linux distribution will solve the problem? I suppose there's RedHat Linux 6.2, which is state of the art (circa 1999, lol). Sigh... if only we had a CDROM drive for this laptop.

Thank goodness this is not my computer. :-) Although I've got most things working on my pre-owned IBM Thinkpad, I just have some straggler applications to install. And some minor data I need to punt over from the old laptop because I forget them the first time around.

I did managed to fish out The Sims plus 2 expansion packs (House Party, Living Large). All the other expansion packs are in another box, the bottom of a 4-high pile. I'll get to those another day...

There's actually a story behind where the computer software boxes are located and why they're not easily accessible. I used to know exactly where they were... in the garage, right in front with no other boxes on top of them. But then we had an unexpected water heater leak back in March so I had to move ALL our boxes PDQ while I distracted M with The Wiggles. Mom was at home so she helped mop while I moved the boxes. Thank goodness nothing got really wet in the process. So now the boxes are in one of two other rooms downstairs, in no particular order. It's a mess. But I'm sure it will get sorted out as we move stuff to the new house. ;-) We shut off the water main, which helped slow down the leakage.

Anyhows, we called a Big Water Heater Company to replace the water heater. BWHC came by to look at the problem. Due to new San Francisco codes, the new water heater needed to be elevated 16" with a bollard installed in front. As a result, a regular height water heater would not fit in the space. They would need to install a "shorty" model. Unfortunately, our WH Guy only carries one in his truck and he already used it earlier in the day. (Our WH leaked after 4PM, we didn't get a guy to come by until 6PM or later) So WH Guy said he would return the next morning. He turned off the hot water valve. In our "panic" mode, we never thought to do that. So we were able to turn on the water to the house and have cold water for the night. Cold water is better than no water.

WH Guy came back the next morning to install the new WH. Yay!!!

Cost for this replacement was around $1500. The WH was actually around $1000. BWHC charges $500 for the installation of the bollard. But WH Guy did not install the bollard. He told us that a city inspector will come to inspect the WH installation, and that they sometimes overlook the bollard. WH Guy said that if the inspector overlooks the need for a bollard, then BWHC will refund us the $500 cost of the bollard installation. Well it's been 3 months now and we still haven't heard from any city inspector. So I'm wondering ... do things move very slowly with the City of San Francisco? Or is this a clever scam for the BWHC to get an extra $500 out of each of their customers? Hmm...

Hmm... if it is the latter, then I'm in the wrong line of work. I should go into the water heaters business and milk an extra $500 from all my customers... imagine all the yarn I could buy with that extra money. Of course I could never do something like this...

It's probably the City of San Francisco moving slowly...

I mean, "slow" is not unheard of. Here's a photo of a bill I received from California Pacific Medical Center for something related to M's birth in March 2005 ... bill received 2 YEARS after she was born. All my medical bills are vague, it's hard to figure out what is what. But this is apparently a bill for the remaining $250 balance after all the dust has settled.

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Ipod Shuffle 06/21/07

Almost forgot it was Thursday. Here's today's Thursday iPod Shuffle...

1. When I'm Gone - 3 Doors Down
2. Butterfly - Mariah Carey
3. Walk It Down - Talking Heads
4. Jusqu'à Me Perdre - Garou
5. Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode
6. Symphony No 9 in C Major, Menuetto - Mozart
7. Dans Mon Reve - Gerald De Palmas
8. Absurd - Fluke
9. Aurora - Bjork
10. Hips Don't Lie (Reggaeton mix) - Shakira

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We've decided on the window treatments for our new house. Faux wood shutters (like these), 2 1/2 inch, for the living room and dining room; both rooms face the street. Faux wood horizontal blinds (like these), 2 inch, for the bedrooms, bathrooms & kitchen. Vertical blinds for the sliding door in the family room. I can't remember the color of the shutters, but I think the color we chose was called Honey Maple. And I think the color of the blinds was called English Oak. The blinds will take a couple weeks to arrive. The shutters take 6 to 8 weeks. Eeks. I think we'll have to put up something temporary while we wait cuz we are not waiting for the shutters to get installed before moving in, that's just way too long. Besides, DH is aiming for moving in during the week of July 4th because his company has a mandatory week off.

DH wants the shutters to be some brown wood color. I've been looking at the window treatments in all the houses I drive past. Of all the the houses with shutters, they are always a white or whitish color. No brown shutters. I wonder why they are unpopular. I like the look of the white shutters. I'm guessing DH thinks that dust is more noticeable on white shutters? Or perhaps he wants to add some color or warmth to our stark white walls. The previous owners slapped on white paint prior to putting the house on the market, and it is a very bland white without any warm tones. I also paid attention to the type of blinds people have in their windows, they also tend to be some white/whitish color. Very few brown blinds to be found in houses in my area. So I wonder whether brown is not such a good choice.

The window measurer is coming to the house tomorrow to measure all the windows. We have the termite people coming in next Wednesday to do most of the stuff that were mentioned in the Pest Report.

We've started to move some stuff over to the house. You know, the stuff you think you can do without. Well Mom asked for some lemon tea, and as I was rummaging around for it, I realized I had already moved it to the new house. Most of my tea collection moved last weekend.


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Thursday iPod Shuffle 06/14/07

Dragostea Din Tea is a really catchy tune (YouTube video & link below). I also have the other version by Haiducii and I like them both. I like the way Romanian sounds, but again, like most other non-English music, I have no clue what is being sung. But we can still enjoy music without understanding it, right?

Francis Cabrel is one of my all time favorite French singers. I have 14 of his albums, but haven't gotten around to ripping them all. I'm afraid my storage boxes of CDs will become more "lost" after we move to our new house.

1. Someone to Call My Lover - Janet Jackson
2. One to One - Hall and Oates
3. Kiss - The Art of Noise
4. Dans Ma Chair - Patricia Kaas
5. La Java de Broadway - Michel Sardou
6. Encore une Fois - Helene Segara
7. It's Oh So Quiet - Bjork
8. Dragostea Din Tei - O-Zone
9. Carte Postale - Francis Cabrel
10. New York - U2

For those of you who haven't heard Dragostea Din Tei before, you can view the video below, or from this link. The video is hilarious...

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iPod Shuffle 06/07/07

Woohoo! I'll be meeting Lisa & Barbara later this afternoon. That should be fun! :-) Since we're meeting mid-afternoon when M normally naps, I am having her skip lunch and have an early nap. Fortunately she did not protest. Better to have a slightly rested toddler in tow than a fussy one. Oops, spoke too soon, she just woke up screaming, that didn't last long (1/2 hour), gotta go...

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Thursday Ipod shuffle

1. Faster kill pussycat - Paul Okenfold & Brittany Murphy
2. Concerto for piano & orcegstra NO 2 in A Major 1. adagio sostenuto assai - allegro agitato assai - Franz Liszt
3. Told you so - Depeche Mode
4. Like a virgin - Madonna
5. The great curve - Talking Heads
6. This is how a heart breaks - Rob Thomas
7. Pimp juice - Nelly
8. Die Zauberflote, Schnelle Fuße, 6a-51e6 0u2 -Mozart
9. Symphony #9 Choral 3. adagio molto e. cantabile - Beethoven
10. Nothing compares to you - Sinead O'Connor

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iPod Shuffle 06/01/07

Well, this iPod Shuffle list was supposed to be posted on Thurs 5/31 but it got busy over here and I didn't have time.

Busy weekend ahead. I have to get up early to help Mom with something on Saturday plus take M to Musical Lapsit at the library if I can swing it. Sunday is a visit with the in-laws.

It finally hit me that our escrow closes on Thurs 6/7!!!! NEXT THURSDAY!!!! That's not too far away!!!! I know we wrote down a date on our Offer Papers, I just couldn't remember when it was ... and no, I can't go check the papers cuz I'm lame. We've signed the Loan Papers. I was definitely somnambulistic during that meeting, it was a complete blur, sign here, initial there, what are we getting ourselves into again??? (Or maybe it's because I haven't been sleeping well lately)

Anyhowz, we get to walk-through our new house with our Realtor on Monday --- YAY!!! I want to make note of a few things so I can start making some plans. I really wish we had some sort of floor plan diagram showing where everything was situated and with the dimensions of each room.

Sometime Tues and/or Wed we have to get the cashiers checks for the down payment to the Title Company. We have a ballpark idea, but we're waiting to find out what the final number will be. It will be the down payment - $28,500 "earnest money" check (there's probably a proper name for this) + "mystery charges". Going through the list on the Loan Papers makes me think of my phone or cell phone bill, complete with mystery charges tacked on. We haven't figured out exactly how we're going to go about getting this together cuz it'll come from several places.

My Mom is helping out with $200,000 for the down payment. It runs in our family to help one's children with things like house buying. My Mom's siblings, who also grew up in Hong Kong, also helped their kids (my cousins) do the same.

I'm not sure where the remainder will come from. It was going to be a combination of savings and stocks. But since the stocks dropped, it might be some other combination ... more savings & less stock? all savings? I dunno. DH & I have been too busy to actually discuss it; he's also got a lot going on at work that is eating into his home time ... and poor guy, he has to do "homework" this weekend too, writing focals for all the people who report to him. I think he'll have to do it all on Saturday since we're going to visit the in-laws on Sunday. This also translates to me taking care of M full time on Saturday, so it's not really a "day off" for me either, no/little relaxing for me, my weekend is already completely gone.

Gosh, I wish we could insert a few extra days every other day between now and Thurs ... to have some extra free time. I really need more down time, I'm feeling really stressed about the whole house thing, and everything is just moving forward way faster than I had anticipated.

1. Heaven or hell - Alphaville
2. Fighter - Christina Aguilera
3. The Reflex - Duran Duran
4. The Jet Set - Alphaville
5. Morning Song - Jewel
6. Bizarre love triangle - New Order
7. Perfect Kiss - New Order
8. Diggin' on you - TLC
9. Sinfonie Nr. 5 B-dur 4. Allegro Vivace - Franz Schubert
10. Honey to a bee - Tina B

And the photos are daytime shots of my Utopia Hat. Color always comes out better in may daytime photos, as you can see by comparing this to my previous photo of the same hat. Pooh bear is modeling the hat so I can show you what the top looks like.

The nice thing about this type of cable pattern is that it is makes a nice stretchy fabric that will fit a wider range of head sizes.

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My Luna Moth Shawl went to Mom, she likes it and tells me it is warm. It amazes me that something "holey" can be warm. Anyhowz, she is now wondering whether I could knit one as a gift to one of her friends. I think she meant one shawl, but I know there could be one or two other people. Now I'm wondering when I will find time to knit her knit gifts and still manage to finish all my knit gifts.

I had also mentioned possibly using Adara for my Mom's vest. Well, Mom, being Mom, has changed her mind about the yarn. Not surprised there. It's not uncommon for her to think A, then later come back and say no, no, no, now I want B, and then later on come back and say no, no, no, I think C is a better idea.

Mom called me to let me know she thinks a solid color yarn would be better than a variegated one. She mumbled something about solids being better for the "elderly" (she's in her 70s). Then she suggested using the same yarn as the one for the shawl (Highland Wool). Well, there's a lot of colors for her to choose from!!! Now I just need to show her the HW shade cards and have her choose a color.

I am concerned about whether I can substitute Highland Wool for Lion Cotton. Will the vest come out too small using HW? I'm not sure how I could compensate for the difference.

HW gauge: 19 sts / 4 inches on US7
Lion Cotton gauge: 16 sts / 4 inches on US7
Pattern is knit with US7 needles

Perhaps I should knit the medium size vest instead of the small size vest? I dunno. Of course even if I were to use Lion Cotton, chances are still just as high that the vest will come out all wrong.

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I plan on typing up the patterns for the Miranda Scarf and the Utopia Hat soon, but probably not this weekend. I will try to take a better photo of the scarf (you already saw it here), in daylight, this weekend. I also plan on blocking my Georgiana Scarf too, which I've been meaning to do for ages, maybe I'll somehow get that done this weekend too.

Ack! It's almost half past midnight. Gotta go to bed. Hope this post is coherent...


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Ipod Shuffle 05/24/07

I can't believe half the songs came up French this time.

1. The Winner - Crystal Method
2. Tant Que C'est Toi - Natasha St. Pier
3. Il Me Dit Que Je Suis Belle - Patricia Kaas
4. The Wild Boys - Duran Duran
5. Symphonie Pour Une Dingue - K-Maro
6. Elle Est D'Ailleurs - Pierre Bachelet
7. Symphonie Nr. 2 D-dur Op. 36 IV Allegro Molto - Beethoven
8. Sous le Vent - Garou et Celine Dion
9. Fat Boy - Jewel
10. Union of the Snake - Duran Duran

Patricia Kaas is one of my favorite French female singers.



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Ipod Shuffle 05/17/07

Here's Thursday's iPod Shuffle. I don't think my "shuffle" feature is very random today... I got Erasure and U2 twice!

1. Ice ice baby - Vanilla Ice
2. London bridge (oh shit) - Fergie
3. Who do you love - Whitney Houston
4. Black balloon - Goo Goo Dolls
5. Lets take one more rocket to the moon - Erasure
6. Breath of Life - Erasure
7. Exit - U2
8. With or without you - U2
9. Nervous - Crystal Method
10. J'ai tout quitté pour toi - Patricia Kaas

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Ipod Shuffle 05/10/07

Here's what I get in tonight's Ipod Shuffle. I got Mozart twice! What are the chances of that?

1. Just a little bit - 50 cent
2. Cry for me - Paula Abdul
3. Contribution - Jurassic 5
4. If you wear that velvet dress - U2
5. Symphony No 14 in A Major Menuetto - Mozart
6. Everybody wants to rule the world - Tears for Fears
7. Tears are falling - Angelina
8. Divertimento No 13 for 2 oboes, 2 horns, & 2 bassoons in F Major K. 253, movement 3 (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) - Mozart
9. Party's not over - Love & Rockets
10. What do you hear in these sounds - Dar Williams

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Ipod Tunes 05/01/07

I'm stealing this idea from a number of other blogs. Here's what I get from shuffle tonight ...

1. Contact - Kyo
2. Romanza - Andrea Bocelli
3. Gitan (live) - Garou
4. Lush 3 Walk About - Orbital
5. If I was Your Girlfriend - TLC
6. Sontate Porr Violoncelle et Piano, Op 19, Allegro Mosso - Sergei Rachmaninov
7. Je Sais - Patricia Kass
8. This Town - GoGos
9. Too Shy - Kajagoogoo
10: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me - Nadia Turner

It's really a skewed representation of what we have since we haven't yet finished ripping all our CDs to MP3s. Things move slowly in this house, we've been working on that for years...

I managed to watch American Idol on the same night it aired which means I get to vote!!! :-) I'm still voting for Melinda and LaKisha...

Not much to report today. Not much knitting done. Went to look at a house (seems to be all we do these days, if not looking, then reading disclosure packets). Had lunch at The Fish Market, they have a flourless chocolate cake that is to die for. Oh, and their fish isn't too bad either. ;-) This is one of the few restaurants that Mom approves of (and she is very picky about her food!) and is also toddler friendly. M has always had a great time there.

Oh, to answer TracyKM's question about what a Disclosure Package was ... it is a shishkabob load of paper work you should read before deciding whether to make an offer on the house. It includes things like the 3rd party property inspection, roof inspection report, pest report, permit history, transfer disclosure statament, etc. It's time consuming to read through it all, but you do feel like you've made a slightly more "informed" decision.


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