Top 5: Songs that Represent My Last Five Years

There are a handful of songs that represent years in my life so completely that lsitening to them becomes oppressive, in that I'm suddenly remembering solving integrals in my dorm room or walking home from my high school with my Discman in my pocket. I have a bad habit of fixating on songs, and playing them over and over again. This habit only got worse once I got my iPod, Old Greenie (now on its last legs), since no one would then be privy to my secret shame. Particularly when the songs were from twenty plus years ago, and I was dancing in my room in some odd combination of jerking and voguing. Here they are:
1. (Grade 10): Nick Lowe- Cruel to be Kind
2. (Grade 11): Modest Mouse- Float On
3. (Grade 12): Roy Orbison- I Drove All Night
4. (Uni Year 1): The Pet Shop Boys- West End Girls
5. (Uni Year 2): Camera Obscura- Tears for Affairs

Looking back on this list, it's really sad how few of my favorite songs were popular at the time. Heck, only two were semi-contemporary, and only one could be considered broadly popular. And then American Idol had to go and run Float On with this ad... thing for cars that defies all description. Gah.

The Top 5: Online Baking Recipes

I've recently been on a bit of a baking kick lately. I had the People's Liberated Knitting Front of McGill over for tea and British comedy on Saturday, and a potluck later that night, and so I had to bake something. My secret shame is that I love baking more than cooking anyway. My parents let me bake before I could cook, because I was a notoriously accident-prone child and if I was baking they could just pop it in the oven after I was finished. I remember standing on a kitchen chair, carefully measuring out ingredients with my parent's yellow table and teaspoons, then levelling them off with a butter knife. I've always made sure to level off all my measurements just as conscientiously, convinced that disaster would surely follow if I did not. I usually used the recipes my mom had copied out in cursive on index cards, or the food-splattered Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but now I use the Internet. The recipes are easy to find, free, and if I drop an egg on it I can just print off another copy. Here are my top 5 favorites.

1. Alton Brown's The Chewy Cookie: Delicious chocolate chip cookies, with a little caramel bite. I make these every time I want to perk someone else up, and then scarf a few myself.
2. Orangette's Lemon Yogurt Cake: This has been making the blog rounds lately, and since she's had it up since 2004 that's definitely a testament. It's not a sweet cake, but it has an elegant simplicity and a refreshing lemony bite. It's also very easy to make. The batter is whipped up in one bowl without even needing beaters, and the glaze doesn't need to be boiled in a separate saucepan or anything. I've subbed olive oil in for the canola when I've been low and it's turned out fine, and I also recommend using Liberté's 2% yogurt if you're in Quebec.
3. Upside-Down Pear Cardamom Cake: There's a delicious blend of flavours here, with the simple cake lightly spiced with cardamom, and then topped off with Anjou pears softened during baking with a simple caramel. It doesn't take much more work than your average simple cake, and looks lovely on a simple white dish. The recipe gets a little shrill about the fresh cardamom, but you know what? I'm cheap, and I am lazy, and the McCormick's ground cardamom tastes just fine. That's a photo of a slice of leftover cake, which I'll shortly be enjoying for lunch.
4. Cakeman's Red Velvet Cake: Make sure to use the entire bottle of red food colouring for that unnatural red glow. The point with Red Velvet Cake is to make it look like it's fake! It should be at home next to a set of acrylic nails and a bottle of Aquanet. The cake tastes delicious too, and makes for some great cupcakes. I'm not one for cream cheese icing, so I usually ditch that for a simple white buttercream frosting.
5. Baker's Best One Bowl Brownies: Yes, it's a recipe from the back of a box. Yes, it looks a little pedestrian compared to the others here. But they are my favorite simple brownies, and I've been making them since I was a little kid. I lost the recipe I stole from home, but I found it online again! The official Baker's recipe seems to involve a microwave in some capacity, and has dropped the delicious, and very sweet, icing. Since my family was always microwave-less (my Dad was convinced we would all sprout tumors and die once one was brought into the house), and I love sweets this simply will not do. Here's the classic.

The Top 5: Things That Would Somehow Manage to Make My Fortnight Worse

The last couple of days blew. The blew as if the vessels for the wind of the mighty Zeus himself. I would write more, but then I would get all snotty-nosed and nobody needs that. So, here are three things that haven't happened to me yet but probably will.

1. Herpes. Sure, I know it's not that big of a medical deal, but neither is eczema, and that pisses me the hell off. And rather like eczema, herpes never goes away.
2. While trying to dash out of my trash heap of my room and to class, I trip over my pile of dictionaries and Interweave back issues, becoming wedged underneath my bed. Forced to subside on stale gummi worms and half a bottle of Aberfoyle Springs water, I succumb after a week. Roommate finds me only after Oliver the cat has gotten a touch peckish.
3. I lose my arm in a fake metro accident. Prof asks me to provide a medical note of excuse.
4. I lose all my money to high-tech thievery.
5. Leprosy

The Top 5: Places I Want to Visit In The World

1. Australia
2. Russia and the Ukraine
3. Cyprus
4. Thailand
5. Chile and Easter Island

The Top 5: Things in MN

Protagitron Eats A Cherry on a Spoon in Front of the Cherry on a Spoon at the Walker Art Center

1. The People: Minnesota seems to have been mostly settled by a race of kindly, blonde giants. "O, Giant, I'm not buying anything at YOUR store... but do you know where a store I will be buying from is?" "Oh ya, ya, just go through the intersection and it's right across from the restaurant. The owner was just in my store the other day. Do you want me to drive you?"

2. The Park at the Mall: What a wonderful idea. Gaze upon all of the wonderful things at Nordstroms you can't afford to buy, then you're off to eat some mini doughnuts and ride some mini rides. My favorite was the long ride, especially since all of the safety contingencies are pretty much on the honour system of "Don't stand up in your log ride, please". Also, there's a giant animatronic Babe with sinus problems and a giant animatronic Paul Bunyan who is possibly drunk. Maybe it's just because it's old, but Paul Bunyan's eyes don't open all the way and they roll back a lot. "Whoaaahhhrrrgh Baabe... warrrch out for the acshe, Baabe."

3. The Walker Art Center: I forced my poor roommate to take multiple pictures in front of the famous Spoonbridge with Cherry at the Minnesota Sculpture Park, to the point where it probably looked like I was at some kind of photo shoot (Make love to spoon! Feel the slush beneath your feet. Turn it out!) Then we made her friend pretend to be an elephant to replace the giant elephant sculpture we couldn't find. I also got really excited about spotting a Calder sculpture, since I've had a strange fondness for his work ever since I saw video of his genius mechanical miniature circus. The art collection was pretty good, and the Barney they had on exhibit didn't annoy me as his work usually does. But maybe that's just because I've always wanted a disco saddle. I found the main exhibit, silhouettes by Kara Walker, to be rather disappointing. Here's the WAC blurb on her: "Over the past decade, she has gained national and international recognition for her room-size tableaux depicting historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence, and subjugation but made using the genteel 18th-century art of cut-paper silhouettes." Uh huh. It seemed puerile rather than provoking and the worst kind of lazy rebellion. The swampy backgrounds are beautiful in silhouette, but after a while all the limb chopping and giant cocks of just become boring.

4. Target: I know this isn't native to Minnesota, but Minnesota was my first exposure to the glory of the Target. It had become a Xanadu to me, a mythical place just out of my reach full of Mizhairi clothes and Oldham home items. The first time was a little disappointing, and I left with only some discontinued Sonia Kashuk brushes, but the second time I went in the Proenza Schouler clothes had arrived and Target was instantly redeemed. Alas, my boobliness barred me from all the cute dresses, but I still managed to pick up a really nice and versatile circle skirt. Well done, Target. And Americans- stop holding all of the wonderful target stores hostage. Free them to the North!

5. Cafe Latte: Great place in St. Paul to hang out with some one awesome like Katie. On the menu: scones with creme fraiche and raspberry jam. Under discussion: that biatch who told Katie she wiggled her way into the music faculty. My words of wisdom: "At least YOU don't have a mustache." Heaven.

I live, and the Top 5: Sodas

I went one week without posting, and then another few days, and just decided to make it an even two. But I'm back! Many things happened during my hiatus, some good, most bad or merely humiliating, so expect more tomorrow. Until then-
The Top 5: Sodas
1. Fanta: Sweet nectar of heaven, why aren't you more readily available in Canada? Orangina has this weird crap floating around it. Apparently it's pulp from something called "real oranges". To which I say pah- isn't this why we developed artificial flavors that tastes like oranges in Vegas? So we wouldn't have to deal with the throat tickling sensations of the dreaded pulp. Fanta is also less sickly-sweet than regular orange soda, but still with that kick you just don't get from juice, no matter how sugared up.
2. Canada Dry Ginger Ale: Delicious and comforting with o.j. when I'm sick, refreshing when drank plain.
3. A&W Root Beer: Much better than Barq's, its ill-mannered cousin who still watches Jackass. Also includes big bear with an orange sweater and no pants. Deliciously perverse!
4. Brio: Oooh la la, I'm walking along the Plateau, drinkin' my Brio! It's like Coke, but with herbs and crap, so it's just like I'm scootering around the sunny streets of Florence, instead of dodging dog turds as I sacrifice various extremities to the bitter kiss of Montreal winds.
5. Grape Crush: In a strange way, I'm fond of the taste of grape cough syrup. Maybe because it meant a day off school watching all the daytime television one could wish for. Or maybe I just liked my Dextomethorphan HBr. Either way, I like Grape Crush too.

The Top 5: Podcasts I Listen To

1. Cast On
2. Quirks and Quarks
3. On the Media
4. BBC Radio Newspod
5. The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe

The Top 5: Dorktastic Things in My Room

1. My Broadway Classics calendar: It was either this or an Ansel Adams calendar. That I chose this one probably says everything about me. To those of you who would judge: I have a big picture of Ethel Merman as Madam Rose from Gypsy staring at me. Everyday. I think I win.

2. Catwoman Fold and Mail Stationary: I like Catwoman. I like Catwoman a lot. In fact, if I were a fabulously beautiful, athletic, immoral socialite (or flight attendant or prostitute or whatever depending on which version you're working with), cat burglar supreme would be my first career choice. She had everything- a vinyl suit, pretty jewels, and Batman to mack on. I like the stationary because it doesn't require envelopes, and its bright comic-book colours look so jaunty when I go to post them.

3. Nancy Pearl action figure: A gift from my most-beloved roommate, Katie. She comes with shushing action and a stack of books, including her own, Book Lust. Librarians are awesome people, and I'm not just saying this because my Dad was one. They regulate access to the holy books, and are usually helpful, kind sorts of people with brains the size of elephants. Mr. Mills, my terrible high school "librarian" does not count. He was barely human, much less a librarian. Plus, her preferred the term "library technician", as if to prove his twatwaffle status. Nancy Pearl isn't afraid of being a librarian, of dressing the way she wants, or of reading the books she wants, and I love her for it.

4. My nameplate from my old job: Every summer, I usually work with my Mom at the teacher resource center cataloguing books. All of the other ladies had a professional name tag, with their name and the Upper Grand District School Board logo. The logo, depending on your interpretation, is either two children happily cheering in front of the Grand River, or two children caught in some crazy alternate dimension full of visible currents, where one false move could mean death. As a joke, I used to steal my mom's nameplate and cover up her first name with mine, written on a Post-It note in marker. After a while, my mom got them to make one for all the students so she could get her nameplate back. I keep mine on my desk, in case anyone should be in my room and be confused as to who I am.

5. A Big Stuffed Wolverine: No, not a taxidermied animal. Or a stuffed Michigan mascot. Rather, a stuffed version of the X-Man, of the kind that tends to come in those grab-a-toy arcade games. A birthday gift from my friends, it's the perfect representation of my bargain brand of nerdiness. I like superhero books, but not to the point of paying hundreds of dollars for the Wolverine vs. Sabretooth ceramic sculpture, hand painted in a limited edition of four hundred. Or, actually, enough to spend money following a book each month- comic books have gotten too damned expensive.

The Top 5: Worst Songs I've Listened To On My iPod Repeatedly

1. Physical- Olivia Newton John: This song always conjures images in my mind of thirtysomethings dating in the eighties. They would go to see Tarzan, the Ape Man, eat at an Italian restaurant with real napkins on the table that advertises on TV, then go home and have AquaNet hair sex. It also makes me think of Noam Chomsky. Ahem. Only because it was stuck in my head when I was taking a course on Chomsky, so every day it was all "language must be innate I TOOK YOU TO AN INTIMATE RESTAURANT anarchosyndicalism THEN TO A SUGGESTIVE MOVIE manufacturing consent I WANNA GET PHYSICAL." And this is a problem, since Noam Chomsky getting physical is something I would rather not think about, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

2. One Night in Bangkok- Murray Head, from Chess: This should be number one, but then it would be the first thing anyone would see. Everything about this song is just painfully, painfully bad- the mid eighties attempts by white people, the heavily synthed-out score, and the dated politics. I hated it so much, I would let out a shudder whenever "the ultimate test of cerebral fitness" would roll around, and yet I couldn't help playing it over and over and pretending I was some sort of Thai hooker. I hope the blinds were down. Please send help.

3. The House of the Rising Sun- Santa Esmeralda: I can't help but love Santa Esmeralda, even though all of their songs are about 20 minutes long, broken up into seven minutes segments of them repeating the same thing. I think House deserves a special nod, however, since I think it has the least vocals of any of their songs, and one part that's at least six minutes long, of just the bass playing the same couple of notes over and over again. Then the Mexican horns kick in.

4. My Oh My- Aqua: Clippy-clop hooves. Robin Hood-esque story, where Robin Hood has "no time for luhvehng". Clearly Maid Marian is a clingy bitch. I think Barbie Girl, in its way, is a perfectly good pop song, but this one sucks so hard. And yet I love it so much.

5. Gimme Gimme Gimme- ABBA: Wait for the synth breakdown. I had a whole dance routine set to that. It utilized the ugly couch in my family's basement.