mixmas backstory

folks ~ hopefully you've all received your mixmas 2007! if not, well i probably ran out of them, and no worries, you can listen online at my finetune site as long as your company doesn't have a policy prohibiting streaming radio stations like my company JUST rolled out last week (D'oh!!)

i am SO happy with the way this year's mix turned out, although this year more than ever before, i remixed and remixed it so much, that on the final day when i dropped them all in the mail, i couldn't even sleep that night without hearing the tracks - in order - in my head all night long which was definitely a tad maddening.

it's getting harder & harder every year to make and send all the discs, let alone write my cards, so this year i planned ahead and outsourced the production element (instead of burning cd's on my home computer one at a time) and also purchased a "mix kit" of stickers, labels, envelopes, etc. so that's why most of you should have a professional looking one and not a glue & crayons version (although a few last CD's got the glue & crayons treatment).

since late October i have been on a Complaint-Free Diet in an effort to lighten up and appreciate my privileges. most people wonder why anyone would ever put themselves through such a thing (or just look at me as if i've joined a cult) but i took the challenge after being inspired by The Four Hour Workweek blog and as much as i can't commit to a complaint free life (or even a full day) yet, there's something about trying to stop that i love, and it gets addictive. i'm totally sticking with it in the new year, and encourage each of you to try it, even for a week.

what i get asked the most is "what constitutes a complaint?"- well, technically the definition is "an expression of discontent" but the book A Complaint Free World allows that thoughts have a different effect than words, and only statements said out loud count as a complaint. moreover the book suggests that you aim to not complain, gossip, or criticize for 21 days. the criticize part is the hardest for me.

i've been at it for 2 months and like i said, i'm far from achieving a Complaint-Free Life, but i can tell my brain has adjusted a lot already and i don't find myself basing entire conversations on complaints anymore. unfortunately there are some things that happen and it's really hard to "let go" of, like for example, this week, a bunch of my Christmas cards were returned to me because they're square shaped, and who knew, square envelopes that are the size of a post-it note cost more to mail than one stamp. grumble.

i really hope most of you don't let the Christmas crowds and complainers get the best of you. hope you all have a fantastic 2008 and that the mix helps keep you going.

hard times come again no more

i just finished my final task of christmas shopping which was buying for 3 kids at the Denver Children's Home. there's nothing more rewarding and fun than buying for strangers who will appreciate your gifts beyond the depths of your own imagination. i've been shifting in these past couple years towards spending more on that and less on my own family, although i love shopping in general for everyone. now i just have to do the dreaded wrapping & waiting in line at the post office for the rest of my stuff.

for many different and some unknown reasons, this has been a difficult, trying year for a lot of my friends and yet a year of necessary transitions. it's not been easy to keep positive.

i am currently working on a "good mood" themed mixmas to try and shut out the bad ghosts of 2007, but nonetheless one song sticks with me whenever i think about the hard times this year, and it's true, it does come up in my ipod a lot on shuffle (even though i have 7,131 other songs in there). really nicely covered by eastmountainsouth on the Elizabethtown soundtrack, it's this lyric:

let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
while we all sup sorrow with the poor
there's a song that will linger forever in our ears
oh, hard times come again no more

'tis a song, a sigh of the weary
hard times, hard times come again no more
many days you have lingered around my cabin door
oh, hard times come again no more

while we seek mirth and beauty
and music light and gay
there are frail ones fainting at the door
though their voices are silent
their pleading looks will say
oh, hard times come again no more

Thanks to Mum for these links:

women in art

women in film

bad news for michael knight

trying to not let this become "the knight rider blog" but i have to mention that NBC is trying to bring back the series. oh, puleeze. no one could ever be as cheezie and 80's sexy as david hasselfruit was. don't hassle the one & only knight rider!! in other signficant news, the creator of Borat has had a baby, thank heaven for that.

meanwhile i'm sitting here hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, waiting on my world series tickets to show up. the site has been down all morning and apparently only 300 tickets sold out of 60,0000 which clearly indicates the rockies' web site was unprepared for a city-wide disaster of such epic proportions.

if i go, who should i route for though? dilemma? nawww, everybody knows that you have to vote for the team that has stunk the most in recent years, and though it's normally the red sox, rockies have really stunk the most in the past decade.

Go Rockies!!!

No, Derby is not dressing as the cheshire cat for halloween this year (although he could pull it off).

He is just a die-hard Rockies fan and helped me model a Go Rockies pin for a little fund-raiser at work today. Collective "awwwww, how cute is he".

A.J. Jacobs

no doubt you've probably heard about the new book by called The Year of Living Biblically which i admit i shrugged off as a ludicrous rip-off of Evan Almighty at first glance, but actually i really want to read it now, after having just read A.J.'s. article on Radical Honesty last july. check out that article and see if you can resist laughing (ok, maybe snorting) out loud.

another book i will probably read over xmas break, although i'm skeptical it does sound a little cult-ish is A Complaint Free World. let me know if you've read it or have any feedback for me (like "don't do it, Lara! it's a trap!")

If provoked, a bunny will charge.

this disapproving rabbits book & blog are so rad.

nuff said.

thanks to pop candy for the great mindless entertainment, as usual.

K.I.T.T. and Me

Ahhh, I was organizing my old photos today for the new Picasa site and I came across a few I had completely forgotten about, like the time Kate and I randomly came across a midget version of the world's most beloved Trans Am, Kitt, in Lausanne, Switzerland of all random places.

I tried to just pose with the car, but the old men hanging out behind me wouldn't have it - they put a coin in and wouldn't let me get out of the car until the "ride" was over. It even had the adequate music, which accordingly, is now my phone's ringtone.

random notes

first of all, isn't there something wrong with the fact that a MLB baseball player gets to name himself Coco Crispies if he wants to? can't the league draw the line somewhere? and i read someplace that Coco is just doing this baseball gig until he can secure a career as a rapper / reality tv star. what the fulk.

second of all, it's that time of year where the best halloween costume forwards start circulating around work, and this is my favorite photo i've come across so far. rockin' the pedro wig, little man.

Uh Yuyh, Kaua'i

Chris and I just came back from a week in Kaua'i and boy, is that place the best place on earth. Not just the scenery but the flip-flop lazy way of life. We have been three times now, and adore it more each time. This time we didn't even go to any tourist sights at all, just one hike and the rest of the time we put our feet up, cooked on the grill, walked on the beach right outside our door, and chilled.

I tried out a new little Panasonic Lumix camera on this trip which is much easier to carry on hikes and through airports and things, and I have to admit, I was skeptical, but I am pretty impressed so far. The thing that sucks is it eats up batteries fast, like most little digitals do. It also has some blurring issues compared with my Nikon for sure, but the color saturation and tons of custom settings and features (including "Pet mode" and "Sunset mode" and tons of others) I love.

I am posting more on my Picasa site but here's a few highlights to get the jist. Trust me - the greens and blues have not been photoshopped here!!

here's a t-shirt that Chris bought and totally cracked us both uphere's the rainforesty road that you take to get to our condo, way way up on the north shorehere's the Na Pali cliffs in silhouette, middle of the day
and here's a spectacular view from the Kalalau trail, a 4 mile hike we did on the last dayand a sunset view from the plane on our first day

the kitties next door

i am not exactly a "cat person" and neither is Derby - we both tend to be indifferent to cats. but two weeks ago new neighbors moved in across from us, and their two cats always come running to the window and actually Meow whenever we walk by. i have never seen cats react to a dog like that. they even wag their tails. Derby likes it and always sniffs them Hello through the window, in fact, i think he looks forward to seeing them.

today i took some photos and they LOVED it, they kept jumping and playing and posing.

guava yoplait!!!!

OK this blog was supposed to be about our wonderful visit to the Magic Kingdom last weekend. but i have more important blogtent - today i was at safeway and buying the usual blackberry, peach, strawberry yoplait when i suddenly noticed... GUAVA? and Passionfruit?!! Hello!

ironically it's the perfect segueway to our upcoming visit to Kauai in 2 weeks. Denver must be a test market for these flavors because they're not listed on Yoplait's website. I personally love them both but in all honesty, Guava probably won't make it to the mass markets. It's a taste most people have to acquire - for newcomers, it tastes like peach combined with tomato and maybe a little lemon. But I'm a guava girl, so I ate it up instantly. I applaud Yoplait for going out on a limb.

Anyway we went to Daytona and Orlando last week to visit my Grandma Stef. It was so much fun, and less crowded in September, although it was brutally humid, as expected.

Most of my photos are unprintable here ~ when it's that hot, you wear very little, you sweat a lot, and frankly, that's just not something I want to share with the world wide web. But here's us with Dumbo!
and here's some random platypi that I loved.

I am in the process of relocating all my photos to Google's Picasa soon, 'cause Photosite is fading fast. : ( I like Picasa but I just wish it would offer backgrounds and templates for your photo albums. Stay tuned for a blog from Kauai later this month...

That's One Zen Puppy

Derby just learned a new trick today and I'm completely serious - he now will do the yoga pose Downward Facing Dog on command. He really likes it, actually. Next we'll work on tree pose and awkward pose.

i'm a U.S. american

i do love this new t-shirt that says "I am a U.S. American with a Map". I think I'll get one for Derby.

and speaking of the cute dog art site, they posted this adorable cartoon earlier this week, that i can't help but love. don't you dare f*ck with Scooby and Snoopy. and Huckleberry.

type city

coolest web site i've seen in a while
http://www.veer.com/ideas/typecity/gallery.aspx

L-boogie

yay!!! girl is back! i wish i could be in brooklyn today.

what i'm up to

sorry i've been so quiet this summer, everyone... there's a combination of excuses i can offer, but my latest excuse is i've been reading The Four Hour Workweek this month, and it's got me daydreaming about starting my own business.

it's almost too crazy to believe, because i am totally not the prototype of an entrepreneur. the desire for running a business is not in my blood. i have never wanted any kind of senior management position in a company even, because of the stress level and pressure that comes with it. but the types of business Tim Feriss encourages are almost hands-off entirely. you start it, you get it going for a year or two, you outsource the work to companies that provide the service already, you delegate decision making to capable staff, then you let it run on "autopilot".

i know, most people think it's too good to be true, and a more important objective i have thought is, "who wants to be entirely hands off their business?!", i mean, you gotta have something to get involved in that gets you up in the morning. but anyway there seems to be an opportunity in there somewhere for me.

my career goals have always been: to find something that i enjoy, that allows me to save money and give to charities i care about, to work less than 40 HOURS a week, and to have more than 2 weeks vacation a year. i sort of imagined that my only choice for a job was to ultimately become a teacher (which would require at least a couple more years of college, undue stress and debt, all of this just to get to a job with less stress & more money). and i know it's probably that 30 year old birthday looming ahead next year, that's got me thinking so hard about work and income.

so, there's a lot of planning and brainstorming going on in my head. i won't share the details of my business concept until i have a plan, a web site, and when i'm ready to get the word out... but know that if i'm absent from the blog, that's what i'm working on. maybe i'll add a business blog about it soon. : )

cheers.

a photo i love of our niece, Olivia, in connecticut

simpsonize your friends, you know you want to!

the simpsons creators are genius. i just spent 2 hours totally hooked on www.simpsonizeme.com, creating simpsons characters of my entire family. the one of my mom is SO UNCANNY that i have been laughing outloud for the past hour and can't stop staring at it. shh, we don't want to upset her, but it is so realistic, it's hilarious. i'm trying to find a better photo of myself to use.

LaraChris, (we're both with Derby )my family

just in

just in from monterey and although i squeezed a lot into a 72 hour timeframe, the trip still somehow cooled me down to a slower pace. like taking a deep breath.

i don't know what's the matter with me, but i always forget to pack a jacket for monterey. it's like this disgustingly misleading optimism comes over me as i look over my suitcase, thinking "it could be warm in monterey... it is summer afterall" - and of course the fact that i have to carry around wet wipes with me through the airport in denver - it's been THAT sticky and hot - it's hard to imagine needing a jacket. but the CA weather was night & day with colorado's, of course. breezy in the day, foggy in the afternoon, "brrrr" at night. it's still miserably dry hot here, although we're getting a few sprinkles of rain as i speak, and i swear i think i heard my poor car let out a big sigh of relief.

chris is working a really bad, stressful event this week which really sucks, but the one plus side to that is lots of B-52's and Erasure will be blasting from the apartment stereo after i get home from work (i know, poor derby)

still hooked on etsy lately - check out these bobbie pins i got in the mail today! i lovvvvvvvvvve 'em. you can see a bunch of my favorite etsy artists (if your wallet is up for it) under my link list on the right for 'shopping'.
peace.

here's what's happ-nin

so the beastie boys' little instrumental album isn't very critically aclaimed. so what. they've been saying all along that it was just a project for fun. the only thing is, boys, when you do a project just for fun, it's better to just make that for your friends, and not release it like a regular album 'cause then the critics will critique it - and ya know, career move mumbo jumbo.

the landmark in west hollywood is testing out couches as a new seating arrangement that is apparently being received with mixed emotions. personally, what's not to love?! as long as it's a recliner sofa and i can put my feet up! i can just imagine that movie theaters are going to start to have furniture name-sponsors though like "La-Z-Boy Presents Landmark Cinemas".

oddly also reported in hollywood, it made my day that SNZ are talking about a new album. yes! it's about darn time!! if my zippers CD's were records, they would have be all scratched up by now. thankfully that's why i have an ipod.

guardian came out with a list of top 1000 movies to see before you die last week. as unoriginal as their title is, i do prefer this list to the snooty AFI lists that are always outdated, male-driven, and conservative.

oh yeah, for weeks i've been meaning to post something about this artist who chose amusement park rides as a medium. pre-tty original, i must say. i'mimpressed.

not to be outdone by the ridiculous amounts of snow last winter, Colorado's summer so far has been hot & miserable - even humid which never is usually even possible here! they say it was 93 yesterday, but i swear it was hotter than that.

i was driving around in traffic all day, trying to find some shoes for luba's upcoming wedding. i really regret that now because at the end of the day, i just ended up buying some on Zappos anyway! along with some other adorable and very unnecessary (yet necessary!) shoes. (below)
thursday i leave for a short jaunt to Monterey, and July 21 Chris and I are looking forward to seeing some of southwest New York state and northern Pennsylvania countryside on our way to luba's wedding. actually we will be seeing lots of the insides of small airports the most - we have strange, long layovers in places like Detroit, Cincinnati, and Lincoln, Nebraska.

my ipod's turn to blog

i'm overdue on blogging what music i've been into these past few months. sometime i'll make a finetune mix of all these guys but in the mean time, check out their free listening links here:

kathleen edwards - simple & beautiful, she's proof that folk music is alive & well.
the hickories - these songs are lovely and need some attention, tell your friends!
lucinda williams - of course
rodrigo y gabriela - these guys are getting really popular in colorado but i don't know about the rest of the world... they're like the opposite of gipsy kings, spanish-influenced music that's subtle and yet robust considering it's only two people.
cat power - i am baffled at how i never knew this artist sooner, she matches all my favorite styles. and that is why... i love pandora!
esthero - i always liked her but finally she has moved out of the UK-only market.
tristan prettyman - featured on g. love's "beautiful" all over the radio right now, she is quite the awesome and as of now, under-hyped talent... her myspace has a funny impromptu smack in the face song for lindsay lohan.
eisley - they look like little junior dandy warhols! how cute. and they sound like little sixpence none the richer juniors.
lucie silvas - another UK star who hasn't crossed the pond - i picked up on her at an H&M store in europe. she sounds like a much softer christina aguilera at times.
amel larrieux - beauty. full. nuff. said.

visit etsy if you dare

ahhhhhh! i've been avoiding checking out the web site etsy.com ever since molly mentioned it to me last february and i just knew i wouldn't be able to resist buying a ton of stuff. i ended up checking it for a gift idea tonight and my wallet will never be the same (or my purse...).

etsy is a ginormous online shop of handmade goods by cute artists and designers. i tried so hard to resist going nuts but here's some of the damage already done:

above this bagonebag is totally me, $43 incl. shipping


hedgehog & lil' peep bobby pins from tashabb, $6


blue & brown baby wale corduroy tote (i've been needing something for yoga class) $40 incl. shipping

and my favorite of all, the below little owl 'wristlet' by designer blissful! only i got it in darker red. was $36 but it's a "custom order".

ahhh, love this site. gotta go to bed now.

absolut times square

absolut launched a new non-bottle shaped ad campaign last month that otherwise wouldn't have caught my attention but i LOVE their innovative makeover of times square that was in rolling stone this month. one thing i can't figure out no matter how hard i google, is who the exlamation points painting on the left, behind warhol is. i thought it might be jasper johns but i can't confirm. does anyone recognize it? sorry i couldn't find a blown up version of the ad yet!

trailer reviews with a few althoughs

all the summer blockbuster / family movies are shit, so i won't even go there.

the offbeat movie 10mph totally appeals to me - although not for the originality and drama everyone is talking about - but because it's the real life story of harry & lloyd! did NO ONE else notice the correlation?

denzel's next movie, american gangster looks great - although - does ridley scott have to put russell crowe in every movie? crowe can do a brooklyn accent (cinderella man) but he can't pull off a generic american accent. enough crowe already.

you're gonna miss me is another example of why it's so great that documentaries are finally getting production dollars & a little commercial success (last year's american hardcore was another hidden jem).

finally parker posey is starring in a drama again - yay!

everyone's talking about judd apatow / seth rogan's genius in knocked up but i think their next movie superbad (super bad title) looks more on par with something about mary. the mclovin scene is already a classic!

then there's the upcoming anime film Paprika whose director Satoshi Kon was described at the New York Film Festival as follows, “His new movie plays like a head-on collision be­tween Hello Kitty and Philip K. Dick…This delightful movie is bursting with ideas about Japanese repression, multiple identities, collective dreams and the dark side of the country’s love of Cute.”

awesome! It's so very Bjork sounding. and speaking of bjork-sounding, check out some of the wacky soundtrack to Paprika here.

in other news, dirty dancing: the video game is on its way... is it just me, or what took them so long? this movie only gets better & better with age.

'sniff

everyone told me last year when i came back from europe, i'd miss it terribly the first few weeks i was home.

it took me a full year to catch up to that, though. every day this month i've been dreaming of my 3 month vacation, and today is probably the worst yet, since last year on this day i was in Cinque Terre, Italy. ugh!!!

flossy miscellany

wholly. check out this amazing blog of re-imagined movie posters, grindhouse-style. i guess my favorite has to be milo & otis, page 8.

um, if you are good at drawing monsters, this guy in the bay area needs your help. it's for a great cause and a really original idea!

speaking of original ideas... i'd love to meet the genius who thought of the bed jump blog (which brilliantly now supports a hotel booking web site). this blog is definitely in my favorites and definitely is going to get addictive!! thanks amy for the fwd.

another favorite blog i read this week was the scariness of science fiction-character weddings... eeeeeeeeeeeeyikes. halloween & weddings just don't seem like a good combination in my mind.

the above link is via mental floss, my favorite blog so far. it's everything you didn't know you wanted to know, but are so glad you now know. like that there's such a thing as extreme croquet.

and for a real bust-a-gut laugh, check out these unconventional someecards that say what you really want to say, but never would dare to.

queen of the cheezy

today's news about hilary asking the public to pick her campaign song just made me gag - especially her song choices! jesus jones, right here right now? if you're gonna go back to that horrid era, why not just go with MC Hammer's 2 Legit 2 Quit? and U2... how cliché can you get! hilary is like, so trying to be cool, and it's like, so not working. barack is the one whose web site tactics are working, hil. nobody likes a copy cat.

i still think barack should pick a rage against the machine song for his campaign. well, maybe that would scare a few midwestern voters away. but how about "talkin' bout a revolution" by tracy chapman? yeah?

safe to say one of the biggest things on youtube this week is a bruce campbell commercial for old spice where he sings "hungry like a wolf" lounge-style. i'm more curious about the underlying strategy of this commercial... is it ever actually going to be on television or did old spice just "leak" it on youtube to get free advertising? i'm thinking the latter.

two web sites i'm really addicted to lately, and really crack me up:
the cool kids' dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/yesterday.php boochabla!
and the site for all the news that's random - http://www.mentalfloss.com/

more coffee please.

i love this web site

check out this author's web site for her new book.
http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

so much to say

lots of news this week...
stop the press - paula abdul just released her greatest hits and that gives me hope that she is giving up on ever continuing with her recording career.

Oprah has officially endorsed Barack Obama (which is no surprise) but I was surprised at the impact several sites are predicting this could have on his odds...

in flip flop news... new james bond style flops with hidden pockets under the soles just came out. this will probably sell really well in nudist communities but other than that environment, i can't fathom a reason i'd want to carry cash or a credit card in shoes that are meant to be worn in the water. duh!

dylan sighting

this story about bob dylan singing to a kindergarten class is almost too good to be true. i'd be scared, too! but glad to hear he's getting along with his son & grandson. jakob dylan is one of the most underrated semi-young talents of this day & age.