Inspiration Saturday: Rather Be (in Tokyo)

I know I mentioned a while ago my intentions of rebranding this blog, and I'm still planning on doing that.  I'm just still in the consideration and procrastination phase.  But I'm already thinking about some of the things I'd like to write about.  One of those things is music.  I'm not a huge music aficionado, but I think everyone lives their life with their own soundtrack, and every song means something different to each person, depending on when, where, and how they heard it.  Exploring all of the ways we identify with music, and the sometimes surprising reactions I have to music, continues to fascinate me.

So perhaps consider this a kind of sneak preview of the things I'd like to write about in the (hopefully near) future...

For many years, I had a morning ritual every school day that included spending a little time watching music videos, flipping between VH1 and MTV to pass the time before I needed to walk out to meet the bus or (for the last few years) drive myself to school.  Now, when I'm working from home, I occasionally like to indulge in some melodic nostalgia and do the same channel surfing.  That's how I found this music video about halfway through, which caught my eye when I recognized the Yamanote train line.  I immediately went to YouTube to watch the whole thing, and I've since replayed it several times over and had the song stuck in my head.  And so, I pass it along to you, "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit, featuring Jess Glynne:

Tokyo!  And not just Tokyo, but some of the lesser-known but extra-special bits that maybe not everyone will recognize.  The fish market, which I've wandered around quite a bit of in search of our favorite conveyor belt sushi restaurant; the Yamanote line train, which my dad loves and even downloaded an album of ringtones from; and the quintessential yakitori on the grill serving straight-faced businessmen (before the burst into song), which just rings so true.

It's enough to bring my always-latent desire to return to Tokyo up to sigh-inducing levels.  But since that won't be happening any time soon, I should probably just focus on making something out of the yarn I bought the last time I was there from Avril yarn store in Kichijoji.  And maybe drink a cup of Karel Capek tea, which I've been hoarding and drinking only on very special occasions.

Are you also from the TRL generation?  Do you have any favorite music videos?  Do you ever watch them now?  Alicia from Woolen Diversions is having a hopefully great time on her honeymoon right now, but I'm sure she'll have lots of inspiration from Costa Rica when she returns.

Inspiration Saturday: That's the way the cupcake Crumbs-bles

I was surprised earlier this week to read in Cupcakes Take the Cake that the cupcake chain Crumbs had closed the doors of all of its locations permanently on Monday.  I wasn't keeping close tabs on the company, but I did know that they had gone from heady claims of opening locations all over the place, including as nearby as Dallas, to seemingly retreating back to the East Coast.  But I think everyone, including the employees, were shocked to hear that they were going to go from dozens of locations to none in a matter of hours.  And so, I offer you a eulogy* for Crumbs.

I can't tell you that Crumbs had the best cupcakes.  They didn't, and likely suffered from the increasing quality of smaller competitors as well as over-expansion.  But they were my first experience with gigantamous gourmet cupcakes.

It all began on my first trip to New York to visit Sarah Lawrence College as a prospective student.  We stayed in the city to be tourists apart from one day's expedition to the campus a few train stops away.  Along with a whirlwind whip around the city, taking the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and going up and down the Empire State Building twice, we stopped in what was then one of just a handful of locations around Manhattan.  I had a Red Velvet cupcake, taking a photo to show just how enormous it was in comparison to my face.  The combination of cream cheese frosting and college dreams made Crumbs part bakery, part symbol for me.

Sure, Sex and the City made Magnolia the go-to place for miniature frosted cakes, but I was several years behind the uptake on that show.  I didn't watch it until my first spring semester at SLC (yay for dreams achieved!) when my roommate arrived with the complete DVD set.  Then Sprinkles took over the West Coast, and the founder judges an entire competition show on the Food Network devoted to them.  Every other food trend report seems to declare the end of the cupcake trend, making it so frequent a topic of conversation that it seems impossible that it will ever really be true.  Every 'new' cupcake, whether it's doughnuts or pies or macarons, never reaches the same frenzied peak as the cupcake did, and never even really surpasses the cupcake's current numbers.  And so they continue to be the reigning treat in the bakery, constantly inspiring new and delicious creations.

But for me, Crumbs cupcakes were the treat that I indulged in when I went into the city on the weekends.  I was never a very wild, party-going person, so my adventures in the city generally involved Strand Bookstore and cupcakes.  Sometimes I would even buy two and haul one back to my dorm room for later.  And they were the amazing gift a Ravelry friend brought me from new York when we met up near Dallas, transporting them in her carry-on just for me.

So even though I've discovered some tastier cupcakes here in Austin at Sugar Mama's Bakeshop and Toot Sweet, and even though I bake my own cupcakes these days more often than I ever buy them from someone else, there's always going to be a place in my heart and stomach for Crumbs.

*Now, according to Cupcakes Take the Cake again, there's word that the CEO is going to infuse some cash into the company and get it reopened.  Since they're coming back from the dead, maybe they can capitalize on another trend and turn their brand into...zombie cupcakes!

For more (and probably healthier) inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Proofs and penalties, or a random World Cup memory

I'm learning in my professional life the importance of having a good manager, but as I student I always knew the value of a good teacher.  I had a really great math teacher in high school, Mr. Spiller.  How great?  After taking his class as a Freshman, a large handful of nerds, myself included, took a summer school course with him so that after one year of Pre-Calculus with another teacher, we could spend our Junior and Senior years taking two more years of Calculus with him.  It's a testament both to our irredeemable nerdery and to his coolness as a teacher.  His walls were plastered with pop culture posters and a collection of Pez dispensers, but aside from that, he was just very good at teaching math.  It was worth six weeks of unnaturally early (for a teenager) summer mornings to be in his class as much as possible.

What on Earth does all of this have to do with the World Cup, you might ask?  Well, that summer just happened to be 2006, when Germany hosted the World Cup and the United States, like today, found itself in a group with Ghana.  Their match happened to take place at the same time as a test.  This was back in the day when, being the nonconformist that I was in the midst of football-crazed Texas, the only sports I paid any attention to were tennis and soccer.  Knowing this, Mr. Spiller, as he made the rounds up and down the aisles during the test, slipped me a piece of paper with the score of the match in-progress.

Since then, I have inexplicably become a crazed fan of a few more sports, including football, and at least vaguely proficient in discussing several others.  I've accumulated many memories over the course of those years (for example: Go Spurs Go!).  But this one still ranks as one of my favorites.  And we didn't even win.

At the time of this posting, we've just entered halftime for another US-Ghana match.  I hope we win this one...

FO Friday: A bowlful of cereal and some cartoons

I'm still waiting for the time when I think to myself, 'Yup, I'm an adult.'  Well, first of all, I probably shouldn't be starting any sentences with 'yup' as an adult.  But I also don't think it's really a state of mind that I'll ever accept for myself.  As mature and downright boring as I can often be, there's also a strong streak of childlike whimsy that runs through everything I do.  And that most definitely includes these two FOs.

First, the much-anticipated shawl, which I knit one and a half times due to an asymmetrical pattern error:

These are the shots from the pretty nature staging, but here's the less artistic inspiration which is the project's namesake:

I love how bright the rainbow colors are on this shawl, and also how the flecks of white kind of remind me of the frosted effect of the sugary cereal.  I'm relieved that this is finally done, because the colorway really does make me smile, even though having to redo half of it didn't.

Next up, if we have cereal, then we might as well watch some cartoons.  But here's one you might not have seen before:

Krtek the mole is a beloved children's character around the world, translated into dozens of languages.  But he is originally Czech, and I grew up with a few Krtek storybooks, so he's near and dear to my heart.  I was perusing the favorite patterns of my spoilee for a new, long-term, swap when I saw this, so I immediately wanted to try it.  And here it is, modeled by Krtek himself:

The pattern is for a scarf, but I shortened it to a cowl to make it a very quick knit.  Another alteration I made was that when I was turning the short rows for the texture I wrapped, which gives more of a cobblestone effect than the original.  However, it also eliminates the de facto buttonholes that unwrapped short rows created, so I also made an i-cord and sewed that onto the edge.  I love the buttons, I think they match perfectly.

Are you more of an adult or a child when you craft?  For more FOs this Friday, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: Memories of memories

This week, my inspiration is shared with someone else's.  Namely, Jeni of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.  She posted a blog earlier this week about the story behind their latest collection of flavors, Holiday in the Alps:

Aside from how delicious the ice cream sounds (I can't decide whether I'm not intrigued by the Cloverton + Red Currant Sauce or the Pumpernickel, since I love caraway), I can really identify with Jeni's story.  Apparently she spent some time as a youngin' in Stuttgart, Germany, on an army base.  The blog post has some great photos of her all bundled up in the snow.  She says:

Today, what I remember most about my long-ago time in Germany near the Alps and of my childhood in Peoria isn’t so much the mountains and or the subtle beauty of the plains of north-central Illinois. What I remember are the treats that always appeared at our house during the holidays. Every year, family friends from Germany always made sure to send my family holiday care packages of torrone, the nougat-honey-and-almond candy, and white and milk chocolates, and more candies.

For myself, I was actually born near Munich and lived there until I was about three.  I've always had a love of the treats that I associated with Germany as well as the UK, where I've also spent a lot of time.  Things like Kinder Eggs, which are actually illegal here in the US because parents apparently can't be trusted to not give them to their kids before they are old enough not to choke on them.  Or Smarties, the chocolate kind, not the powdery tablet kind.  These were and are treasured treats of sweetness and nostalgia.

This also applies to savory things, like pretzels.  I'm really enjoying the current pretzel roll trend in bread right now, because whenever I see them, I think of this:

Yup, that's me, with a pretzel bigger than my head.

I also get just as much comfort from the deliciousness of svickova as I do from the fact that it's such a classic Czech dish that reminds me of that part of my heritage.  Which is why whenever I'm in Boerne I go to Little Gretel's, a Czech restaurant that happens to have svickova on the menu:

The portions are not as outrageous as a Czech pub, but it's still tasty.

I have very few of my own memories from that time, most of them are mixed up with home movies and photographs.  Again, it's not unlike Jeni's experience:

When I tell people about these new flavors I’ve been referring to them as “memories of memories.” All of my memories are of magical places I see in the old slide photos of my brief time near the Alps: the biergarten with smiling, rosy-cheeked men in feathered hats, castles and fountains, the garden of our landlord where I would follow him around.

The holiday season always brings back these kinds of thoughts, I think, because it's all about traditions carried on over the years.  There are lots of special little things that we all do to harken back to times in our own personal history, and food is one of most potent ways we do that.  Something to do with senses and the memory, I suppose.

If I had my own gourmet ice creamery, I would love to play around with these flavors like Jeni does.  I do what I can in my baking, like the caraway shortbread cookies I experimented with at the Thanksgiving potluck this year.  And spoiler alert for my Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap recipe coming next week, I was greatly inspired by poppy seed kolache, another Czech favorite of mine.

What are your favorite flavor "memories of memories"?  And for more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Inspiration Saturday: Fantasy Registration 2013

Where's the line between nostalgia and masochism?  Because I just can't help but look at the course catalogue for Sarah Lawrence College around this time each year, even though I know very well that I have used up my punch card for the number of times I can take the list of every interesting class and cross-reference it with the schedule and come up with a shortlist for interviews.  And yet I still make the list.

Here's my list this year.  It isn't complete, because I knew I was creating it for this blog rather than for an upcoming academic year (hey, it's shorter than last year!), but it's sprinkled with all of the fascinating subjects that make me long for independent wealth and limitless time:

• Abbreviated Wisdom: How the Short Story Works
• 18th-Century Women of Letters
• Workshop in Photoethnographies
• Women, Culture, and Politics in US History
• Picturing Nature
• Gender and Nationalisms
• Lineages of Utopia
• The Source of Stories: Writing From Your Own Experience, Mixed-Genre Workshop
• Writing, Radio, and Aurality
• Nonfiction Workshop: Recollected in Commotion
• Essay Workshop
• Media Sketchbooks
• Artist Books

I think the class which is torturing my particularly is Writing, Radio, and Aurality.  I've become quite the NPR nerd over the past few years, and I would love to do some writing specifically with spoken performance in mind.  I did a reading or two of my fiction while in college, but I suspect like most writers I've tended to think of my words as being read far more than being heard.  Also, the instructor is Sally Herships, and I've heard her reporting on NPR numerous times.  Including Marketplace, which means she could know Kai Ryssdal.  I want to know Kai Ryssdal.  I would squee like a giddy schoolgirl if I met Kai Ryssdal.

But I'm not a schoolgirl anymore.  That doesn't mean I can't be giddy, though.  So rather than let this list make me sad for all of the round table discussions that I won't be having, I'm going to take it as a guideline for a little self-study.  Because there are no rules against teaching yourself.  I'll just channel all of this energy into the 400+ pages I have left of Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom', and planning my writing for this year's NaNoWriMo efforts.

See, I managed to pull the inspiration out of that in the end, right?  For more inspiration, go to Alicia's new and improved Woolen Diversions.

Anna Chlumsky, still 'My Girl...2'

Before we get started, I have to just put this out there: Yes, I watch some trash TV.  Yes, I realize that it's trash TV.  No, I don't plan on stopping any time soon.  I promise, I balance it out with 'real' culture as much as possible (like Shakespeare, for instance).  I also eat candy balanced out by fruits and veggies.

Growing up, I had a few models for my bookwormy tendencies.  One major icon was one Miss Vada Sultenfuss.  She was the heroine of 'My Girl', played by Anna Chlumsky, who was on 'Watch What Happens' last night with Andy Cohen, making me feel equal parts old and like a child as I realized how long ago that movie was for both of us.  Congratulations to her, by the way, she just announced that she's pregnant.  See what I mean?  I'm so old, the child stars of my childhood are having kids.

While I think everyone knows and loves the original, it's the sequel that came out a few years later that is truly a formative part of my childhood.  Partly because the first, well, it's a little sad.  And for repeated watchability, it's a heck of a lot easier to watch Vada develop a romance with a boy who ends up being her cousin (through marriage! not blood!) than it is to watch her lose her best friend to a swarm of bees.

Vada's love of words is present in the first film, driven partly by a crush on her teacher.  In the second, she's still infatuated with books, but she's definitely not crushing on poet Alfred Beidermeyer.  Here are just a few choice quotes that I hope show you why I love this movie so much, despite it being a typical sequel that everyone agrees isn't as good as the first:

Alfred Beidermeyer: My dear, this is not a country that rewards poetry, this is a country that rewards gas mileage, besides, people don't read poetry anymore, they watch television.  Don't be a poet, be a TV repairman.

Vada: I love the fragrance of vintage books.
Nick: I love the fragrance of chili dogs. 

Vada: How come guys talk so much when they have nothing to say, and girls have plenty to say,  but no-one will listen?

Phil: We may go out for coffee after the meeting so don't expect us before midnight.

Rose: There's plenty of fruit.
Phil: You know where the fire extinguisher is.
Nick: If the fruit burst into flames I'll be prepared.

Am I the only person who knows this movie frame by frame?  Who thinks that the definitive version of 'Smile' is the one sung by Vada's mom in the home movies?  Who loves the fragrance of both vintage books and chili dogs?

Inspiration Saturday: You know you're a lit nerd when...

...you practically squeal out loud as you scan a list of upcoming movie releases and discover that the 18th-century Gothic novel 'The Monk' has been adapted.  Because I'm assuming that's not a reaction that most people had.

Some of you might recognize the book just from the references made to it in Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey'.  Matthew Gregory Lewis' novel about a holier-than-thou monk's fall from grace was one of more than a dozen on the syllabus for possibly my favorite class at Sarah Lawrence: The 18th-Century British Novel in Context.  We read it over the break between fall and spring semester, and my mother can attest to just how 'involved' I became while reading it.  The sheer villainy that this monk stoops to, it's deliciously evil.  I found it difficult to analyze the novel in class because I experienced it more like a reader just in awe of what was happening in the story. I felt just like Catherine, eyes wide as I carefully but quickly turned each page.

So there being a new French film adaptation of the book strikes all of the right chords with me.  Unfortunately, it's a 'limited' release over here in the US, even two years after coming out in Europe, and so far no showings have popped up in the Austin area.  I did write an Examiner article about it, though.

Also, I'd just like to shout-out to a fellow blogger, Faith over at Faithfully Geeky, particularly for her recent FO post.  Her sweater, along with this movie, are making me even more nostalgic than usual for my college days.  It's been several years now, I'm pretty sure my missing them isn't going to go away.  I'm really tempted to e-mail my professor about the movie, maybe they'll have better luck finding showtimes nearer New York City.  Then I can at least live vicariously through another class of lucky lit nerds.

Alicia at Woolen Diversions has taken the weekend off, but she's left a really cute kitty photo for you!

Oh la la, Ah La Cart

Surprises are not my strong suit, mostly because I'm not a great improviser.  I love to plan, make lists and check them half a dozen times (Santa only has to check twice, but that's only because he's magic).  Surprises rarely lend themselves to list-making.  But last week, I had a great surprise that facilitated my love of list-making.  One of my friends from my semester abroad was in town for the week, and was available to meet up!

In trying to decide on a spot, I put together a list of possible foodie spots that were worthy of a tourist's visit.  I offered up some of my own tried and true favorites, like Sugar Mama's Bakeshop for cupcakes, Kerbey Lane Cafe for pancakes and more, and of course some frozen yogurt.  I also included a few spots I hadn't gotten the chance to try myself yet, mostly a sampling of food trailers which have come to dominate the culinary landscape of the city.  Sometimes it takes a visit from the 'tourist' to get you to discover something great in your city.

After doing her own research (we're friends for a reason, she had to make her own list as well!), my visitor chose one of those food trailers, Ah La Cart.  All on its own in a parking lot next to a bike shop, they do 'slow food, fast' with seasonal home cooking using fresh local ingredients.

As with most food trailers, the menu is limited, but it still had more than one dish I wanted to try.  I decided to be good and stick with a classic I have been craving recently: mac and cheese.  Now, this particular dish doesn't really lend itself to beauty shots.  But smoked Tillamook cheddar and Alderwood smoked sea salt sounds pretty good, right?  It tastes even better.  So creamy and cheesy, with the breadcrumbs on top giving it a little texture as well.

It's meant to be a side dish, so it's about a cup of rich deliciousness.  Perfect serving size for me, and I'm sure that even people who don't count their calories would feel satisfied if they paired with a pork belly taco, which my friend had on a corn tortilla.  Yes, you read right: pork belly.  There may not be crazy-huge portions or a novel-length menu, but they pack a lot of flavor into what they do serve.

This just happens to be a very convenient stop on the way to either the dentist or mechanic for me, so this will be a great way to turn errand-running into something delicious.

WIP Wednesday: Where you lead, I will knit

After several weeks of displaying my progress with pride, this time I have to veil my projects in a little bit of secrecy.  Because along with a few rows on my cardigan, what I'm now working on is for a swap package.  And on the off-chance that my spoilee, or anyone else from the swap, might be amongst my reading audience, I'm not going to offer up any photos.

But I will offer up hints.

The swap is themed around Gilmore Girls, the mother-daughter show that mixed hilarity and drama, and ran on the WB in my high school and college years.  How I loved this show.  Like millions of others, I watched this with my mother when I was in high school.  There was small town quirkiness, stereotypical teen drama with a sincere twist, and constant pop culture references in a script that was several pages longer than most shows.  The fact that the daughter was a teenage bookworm with high collegiate dreams didn't hurt.  I, like Rory, constantly had a book with me, and I had an inability to pare down my library when going on longer trips.  You just never know what you're going to want to read!

Unlike Rory, though, I didn't change my mind about the college I was determined to attend at the last minute.  And when I did leave to go to Sarah Lawrence, I watched in the communal TV room with other fans (I camped out in the room up to several hours ahead of time to make sure we got the time slot).  Then I called my mom afterwards to talk about it.

So returning to this classic (don't you love how it only takes a few years for something to be classic?) has been a lot of fun.  There are so many references to pull from.  What can I make with a box of corn starch to harken back to Rory's first kiss?  How best to represent Lorelai's classic refrain of 'hockey puck, rattelsnake, monkey, monkey, underpants'?

I won't say what my first handmade is, but I will reveal that I have borrowed the stitch pattern from Lorelai's Scarf in Blue Heaven, which was reverse engineered from one of several pieces of knitwear worn over the course of the show:

Except I'm not using the four-row pattern to create a scarf.  I charted out the directions and did some crafting voodoo to turn it into a pattern knit in the round.

And that's all I'll say!  Anyone else out there a GG fan?  Any ideas for crafted goodies I could include? Favorite bits of randomness?  And don't forget to check out the other WIP Wednesday posts around the web!

A haiku a day keeps the poet at play

I've been a writer before I could even really write, scribbling pretend letters along with my doodles.  Once I learned my ABCs, I was putting them together to make all sorts of things, including poems.  This has lead to some truly, truly embarrassing attempts at rhyme.  Let's just say that there was a time when I grasped for a phrase to pair with 'fun' only to end up with 'hot dog bun'.

Thankfully, these word choices refined slightly by the time I was in high school, taking part in poetry slams which began my freshman year, and continued at least a few years after I graduated as far as I know.  I even attended one or two as an alum.  Now that I think about it, I should see if it's still happening, and volunteer to judge or something.  Continue on the tradition, as it were.

On a personal level, I've continued the tradition slightly with one of my guideline resolutions, keeping a journal on hand as much as possible, and so far filling it with at least one haiku a day.  For the most part, these are not compositions I would ever attempt to perform or publish.  They are meant to be more like mental puzzles for me to complete each day.  Instead of jotting down at the end of the day something like, 'Went to work, had meetings, came home and watched TV,' several times in a row, putting it in haiku form forces me to think about the day in a different way.  Some days, it's an abstract list of the highlights of the day.  Other days are scribed based on a particular moment.  And still other days I end up writing more than one haiku, along with any other random writing ideas that spring to mind.

Having to carefully choose the words to fit into the 5-7-5 syllable format so far has felt more like an opportunity and a challenge than an annoyance.  As I'm walking to the coffee maker, I'm counting syllables and deciding whether today's musing should be dedicated to my desperate need for caffeine.

Of course, the end of January is hardly the time to be declaring a resolution a success.  But it's a start, at least.

Old Navy makes me feel old

I have a tendency to lament 'I'm so old!' a lot.  Mostly I'm being facetious, I know that I'm not actually old.  But I'm still shocked when I see evidence of how quickly time flies and how soon I transitioned from teenybopper awash in the trends as they took over, to the point where the 90s is considered...nostalgia.  Wow.

Particularly jarring are the latest slew of Old Navy ads.  First, it was a series themed around back to school that starred the 'kids' of Beverly Hills, 90210.  That show missed me by just a few years, the purview of say, my best friend's older sister.  And she's married with a kid now, so it makes sense that the store is looking to push her pop culture buttons to get her to make her clothing purchases there.

But now, now I see the Backstreet Boys providing the soundtrack to a parade of skinny jeans in a rainbow of colors:

Boy bands, now that was something I was right in the middle of.  BSB, 'N Sync (my personal favorite), LFO, 98 Degrees, and even Brits BBMAK, I was singing right along with them at every opportunity.  I even went to an 'N Sync concert, the Pop tour.  Back then, of course, no one would have been caught dead in these pants.

But now, here are a much older gang of Backstreet Men, as it were, putting their catchy chorus back into my head while reminding me that I have entered the second phase of my sellability as far as companies are concerned.  Now I am not the teenager with allowance to spend on CDs and magazines.  Now I am the young adult, possibly with a family and buying trends for them as much as for myself.

I know it's a little weird to be demarcating the stages of my life based on what I'm being sold and how, but it's a big part of the cultural context.  Plus, I can't help but get a little meta about myself.  It's the liberal arts student in me.

My 'short' list for Sarah Lawrence fall registration

Tonight, nervous first years and seasoned seniors alike will wait, likely until the wee hours, to learn the fate of their attempt at the first round of registration for classes this semester.  If they are lucky, the computer filled their three course slots with their first choices and tomorrow they can enjoy their Bates brunch without a care.  If not, the rest of the night will be like their first college cram session as they search the courses with openings for something that might possibly replace in their hearts the class they didn't get into.  I wish I was there with them, my emotions flitting between hope, fear, nervousness, excitement, and a craving for brunch lingering beneath it all.  Instead, I can only read the course catalogue with jealousy and nostalgia.

Oh, and I can blog about it!  I tried to come up with a short list of the courses I would have thought about taking this semester/year, but I ran into the same problem I always did upon first scanning my options:

• Kinship: An Anthropological Story
• The Power of Words: Language, Hegemony, and Social Inequality
• Migration and Experience
• The Anthropology of Life Itself
• Holding Up Half the Sky: Chinese Women in History
• Digital Zeitgeist
• Hunger and Excess: Histories, Politics, and Cultures of Food
• Activists and Intellectuals: A Cultural and Political History of Women in the United States, 1775-1975
• Revolutionary Women
• Fops, Coquettes, and the Masquerade: Fashioning Gender and Courtship from Shakespeare to Austen
• 20th-Century British Literature
• An Introduction to Shakespeare
• Studies in the 19th-Century Novel
• Campaigns and Elections: 2012 Edition
• Theories of the Creative Process
• Drawing: Translating an Invisible World
• Digital Documentary Storytelling: Development and Production
• Character Development Drawing for Animation, Film, and Interactive Media
• Beginning Painting: Form and Image
• Black-and-White Photography
• Is Journalism What We Think It Is?
• Words and Pictures
• Memory and Fiction
• Place in Fiction
• Writing, Radio, and Aurality
• Nonfiction Laboratory

That's 26 courses.  That's more than I took in four years total!  Of course, if I was really planning out my registration, these would then get cross-referenced with the schedule for each class to try and narrow things down.  But I won't go quite that far for the sake of this intellectual indulgence.  I'll just wallow a little in my daydream of winning the lottery and making a huge donation to the school in exchange for setting myself up in my Titsworth dorm room and spending the rest of my days writing conference papers, reading books, and arguing about hegemony and the diaspora.

And eating brunch.

In my day, Nickelodeon game shows were hosted by Olympians

I'm old.  There's just no way around it.  There are way too many things that were better 'in my day'.  Case in point, the new version of 'Figure It Out' on Nickelodeon.  I was browsing TV Guide last night looking for something to watch, and saw it marked as 'New', I giddily grabbed the remote.

In the '90s, aka when all was right with the world, gold medalist Summer Sanders hosted this children's game show with a panel of minor celebrities, like cast members from 'All That' and 'The Adventures of Pete & Pete'.  These days, the host is some guy named Jeff Sutphen.  What medals does he have, huh?  None!  And all I was able to recognize the panelists for was their relative incompetence at figuring it out, as it were.

They did seem to be using some of the same sound effects, but alas, Billy the Answer Head was nowhere to be found. If only I had known, I would have just set the VCR to record constantly from about 1996 through, say, 2005.  Unfortunately, I was not that wise, so I just have to watch some of the DVDs that are finally coming out.  Like these...



Yes, that's right, I'm a nostalgia enabler.  So slime me.