Other: Ouchie

Created by Oatmeal

I can actually hear it, and yes, it hurts, and trust me, 25 is a very distant memory. Dipity, sitting nearby when I played it, could also hear it and got up with this WTF look on her face. Of course, she's a cat. And she's 2.

Knittin' Crap: Pay It Forward

UPDATE: I have my five giftees now! If you want to participate, Sanguiknity still needs a couple, or maybe the takers here will leave comments about where you can find their offer! Thanks!

Via the Random Acts of Kindness group on Ravelry, I found Sanguiknity's Pay It Forward meme, so I'm joining in!

The Rules:

The first five (cinq) (cinco) (5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. (No refunds… no exchanges!!!!)
2. What I create will be just for you, with love from me.
3. It'll be done this year (2009).
4. I will not give you any clue what it's going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. I may even create something totally unbelievable and surprise you!! Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
6. In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note/post of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to it.
7. Please send your mailing address (if you don't live close to me in Los Angeles) to my Gmail account karenblogs. (You can translate that into an email address, right?) Please leave a comment here, too, so people don't think I'm shilling my gifts!

IMPORTANT: This offer is null and void if I do not see you post your own note to pay this forward.

So, come on, folks! Here's your chance to get one of my amazing creations and spread your own handmade love!

When you pay it forward, you can use just about any media you want. Doesn't have to be yarn! (Drawing, painting, clay, fabric, wire, Legos, popsicle sticks...)

Edited to add:

The Rules, Simplified:

1. You sign up (post here and then email me your mailing address if I don't know where you live).
2. I send you (assuming you're in the first five to sign up) something I've made. No requests, no refunds.
3. You post on your blog/social networking page/etc. an offer to do the same thing for five other people.

ETA 2: I will ship internationally, if that was putting anyone off. Just don't expect a life-size Ô Totoro. Actually, that would be true for anyone not willing to come pick it up. Actually, I'm not sure I'd be able to get it through the door. Um, nevermind.

Other: Über Cool Nerd Goddess

I figured since I was apparently missing certain key aspects on the geek test, and there is no way in hell that I am going to start dressing up like a hobbit just to raise my score, I'd find a nerd test.

I assume, though, that it is judged not on an absolute scale, like the geek test is, but relative to other people who have taken the nerd test. Therefore, if a disproportionate number of non-nerds have taken the test, like if it's used as some kind of fraternity test to weed out excessively nerdy initiates, that would skew the results. Right?¹

However, the results page announced they are working on version 2.0 of the test, so I took that.

I am an Uber Cool Nerd God². Run! Run!

No, I have absolutely no idea how I only get 2% on a scale of dorkiness. I suspect there's a bug in their code. (Yes, I know what "code" means.) Actually, I take issue with a lot of their criteria. The geek test was much more finely-grained.

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¹Who here is not saying to themselves, "Damn, this woman needed to take a nerd test to figure out she was a nerd?"
²Should be Goddess here, people.

Other: The Geek Test

I "only" scored 29.5858%. My main deficiencies seemed to be that I never played D&D-type RPGs and am not a big fantasy genre fan. I do get an extra point for being female, though.

Other: Name That Obscure Tune!

Yup, still bored. Came across this unattributed meme which requires... reader participation!

*** Rules Clarification ***

Ok, to clarify, I did that shuffle play thing and wrote down the first sentence from the first 26 (should have been 25 but I can't count) songs that I got. You, The Reader, are supposed to try to guess the song and artist for each quoted line and post your guesses in the comments. No cheating via search engines. If someone gets it right, I mark it off the list.

Rules for the blogger:
1. Music library on shuffle, etc. You will use the first 25 songs your player plays.
2. For each song, post only the first sentence of the lyrics. (You may wish to write down the name of each song on a post-it note on your monitor, next to the one with your passwords, your ATM PIN, your Social Security number, etc.)
3. If the first sentence contains the song title, blank it out with "___"
4. If someone guesses correctly, mark that song as identified by editing the original post.

Rules for guessers (readers):
1. No Googling the lyrics! You either know it or not. I suppose you could listen through your entire music library to see if they're there, though.
2. Post your guess (artist and song title) in the comments. Anonymous cowards will be mocked.

Now, as I have all of about 3 loyal readers these days, and that's counting each cat as ½ depending which one is in my lap or sitting next to the keyboard while I'm typing, and I have a rather narrow and sometimes obscure collection, this should take awhile. Or maybe I'll post the link to a Kristin Hersh fan site in which case probably 90% will be answered in no time. Anyway, here we go...

1. "Oh, please don't be so careless with your glances."
2. "So you're going cross-country, you're leaving me again."
3. "Start with your fingers they finger the chain that carries you home in our evenings." "Beestung" by Kristin Hersh, answered by shythylacine on the Wild Vanilla board.
4. "Orange and blue green and pink, I see you in everything."
5. "When you're stuck like glue, ___, when you need some goo." "Vaseline" by Elastica - brightyellowboi
6. "Toil toil toil til I get sick, I try reverse, but I'm not that quick" "Huffer" by The Breeders - brightyellowboi
7. "The night of the blackout I thought I'm your protege, sticky with the heat and getting stronger every day." "Sally is a Girl" by 50' Wave, again answered by shythylacine on the Wild Vanilla board.
8. "Like honey in my mouth, gold golden going down. I shudder with wonder at what we will feel like together."
9. "Bits and pieces of love for you, so sweet and simple yet, I'm frightened by the way you feel." "Trouble" by Lisa Germano - Wojtek over on Wild Vanilla
10. "Love is a burning thing."
11. "Am I o.k. to feel this way today?"
12. "Toe to toe, dancing very close." "Rapture" by Blondie - moschops on Wild Vanilla
13. "I could be a smack freak and hate society." "Hate My Way" by Throwing Muses - brightyellowboi
14. "You're so right, he can swim, he can breathe underwater." "Start" by Throwing Muses, shythylacine again!
15. "Tell me, milk cow, what on earth is wrong with you?"
16. "I was looking through the portholes out in ___, wondering what the hell I'm going to do."
17. "The wall is high, the black barn, the babe in my arms, in her swaddling clothes, and I know that the sky will split and the planets will shift."
18. "I have two heads, where's the man he's late?" "Devil's Roof" by Throwing Muses - brightyellowboi
19. "You can't depend on anything really, there's no promises, there's no point."
20. "For a moment I smelled the parlor where we had the last connection with your life."
21. "Don’t know what’s eating me today, I’m not in love, I’m not missing anyone"
22. "It start at the top now it's spiraling down."
23. "Well I drink and I cry, clench your fists, grit my teeth, lotta smoke, wipe my eye"
24. "And all that matters in the end's all the good times that have been."
25. "Walking on his highways, we leave the land and float inside the dark, black water."
26. "I have a ___ nailed to a cross on my apartment wall." "Fish" by Throwing Muses - brightyellowboi

Oops, I lost count and accidentally did 26. But the last one's a gimme, right?

Other: R-Rated Soundtracks

I'm bored (still), and I came across a slightly different Your Life As A Soundtrack on puchitomato's blog. For reference, puchitomato is the creator of the Happy Poo pattern, based on a Japanese character she found.

This is basically the same as the first one I posted, with a few differences, like a sex scene. The rules are the same as the first one I posted, if worded a little differently, but for reference, here they are.

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't skip the song just because you don't like it either!

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

1. Opening Credits
2. Waking Up
3. First Day At School
4. Falling In Love
5. Losing Virginity
6. Fight Song
7. Breaking Up
8. Prom
9. Life
10. Mental Breakdown
11. Driving
12. Flashback
13. Getting Back Together
14. Wedding
15. Birth of Child
16. Final Battle
17. Death Scene
18. Funeral Song
19. End Credits

Here I go, Karen, the R Rated version:

1. Opening Credits: Helium - "Medieval People"
2. Waking Up: Bettie Serveert - "John Darmy"
3. First Day At School: Beth Orton - "Daybreaker (Four Tet Remix)"
4. Falling In Love: Kristin Hersh - "Sinkhole"
5. Losing Virginity: Liz Phair - "Fuck and Run" (um... there's the R rating right there)
6. Fight Song: OP8 - "It's a Rainbow"
7. Breaking Up: The Raincoats - "Don't Be Mean" (heh)
8. Prom: Tanya Donelly - "Acrobat"
9. Life: Liz Phair - "Headache" (yup, that's about right)
10. Mental Breakdown: Lisa Germano - "Dig My Own Grave"
11. Driving: Dressy Bessy - "Better Luck"
12. Flashback: Lucinda Williams - "Hot Blood"
13. Getting Back Together: Mary Margaret O'Hara - "To Cry About"
14. Wedding: The Raincoats - "Love a Loser" (ouch)
15. Birth of Child: Robert Johnson - "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"
16. Final Battle: Belly - "Are You Experienced" (a horrible cover, BTW)
17. Death Scene: Memphis Minnie - "Please Don't Stop Him"
18. Funeral Song: SF Seals - "Janine's Dream"
19. End Credits: Cat Power - "Empty Shell"

Other: If My First Band Broke Up and the Internet Named the Second One...

Well, my first meme band broke up because of non-existent album sales (think it had anything to do with name and cover which made it sound like an inspirational poster band?), so here's the second band's first album cover. At least it's a little less likely to be mistaken for a band that formed in a self-help group meeting.



I suppose if nothing else I've learned how to do several new and useless things with the GIMP.

Other: If I Ever Started a Band and Let the Internet Choose the Name...

Apparently, I've been "memetagged."

The rules:

1. Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random... Read More” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to "Random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Put it all together.

5. Post it.

Just shoot me...

Other: Your Life As A Soundtrack

I don't even remember where I found this, but it's been going around the web a long time. I posted it on the old throwingmusic.com board¹ a year or so ago and there were some great fits.

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool - first songs only

• Opening Credits
• Waking Up
• First Day of School
• Falling in Love
• Fight Song
• Breaking Up
• Prom
• Life is Good
• Mental Breakdown
• Driving
• Flashback
• Getting Back Together
• Wedding
• Paying the Dues
• The Night Before the War
• Moment of Triumph
• Death Scene
• Funeral Song
• End Credits

Here's what I came up with the first time:

• Opening Credits: Fastbacks - "I Know"
• Waking Up: Faith No More - "We Care A Lot" (only had it because it was in a Rhino box set, I swear)
• First Day of School: Lead Belly - "Irene"
• Falling in Love: Lisa Germano - "Fun, Fun for Everyone"
• Fight Song: Bettie Serveert - "Captain of Maybe"
• Breaking Up: Throwing Muses - "Dovey"
• Prom: Belly - "Lilith"
• Life is Good: Elastica - "Stutter"
• Mental Breakdown: Blondie - "I'm Gonna Love You Too"
• Driving: Patti Smith Group - "Poppies"
• Flashback: SF Seals - "Still"
• Getting Back Together: 50' Wave - "Dog Days"
• Wedding: OP8 - "OP8"
• Paying the Dues: Throwing Muses - "Calm Down, Come Down"
• The Night Before the War: Sonic Youth - "Kissability"
• Moment of Triumph: Lucinda Williams - "He Never Got Enough Love"
• Death Scene: Throwing Muses - "I'm Alive" (I swear!)
• Funeral Song: The Raincoats - "You're A Million"
• End Credits: Carter Family - "Gospel Ship"

I decided my life merited a sequel, and the second one had some uncanny fits:

• Opening Credits: The Raincoats - "In Love"
• Waking Up: The Hangovers - "I Feel Like" (actually works well... "The day just gets up and hits you")
• First Day of School: Kristin Hersh - "Nerve Endings"
• Falling in Love: Beth Orton - "Concrete Sky"
• Fight Song: Liz Phair - "Mesmerizing"
• Breaking Up: The Hangovers - "I Hate You" (awesome)
• Prom: Beth Orton - "Shopping Trolley"
• Life is Good: Mary Margaret O'Hara - "Have You Gone"
• Mental Breakdown: 7 Year Bitch - "The Midst" (perfect - "I need some chemicals, I'm too emotional")
• Driving: Boss Hog - "Texas" (I'd be driving the hell out of Texas)
• Flashback: Gillian Welch - "One Monkey"
• Getting Back Together: Sam & Dave - "Sweet Home"
• Wedding: Barbara Manning - "B4 We Go Under"
• Paying the Dues: Ruby - "Heidi"
• The Night Before the War: Generation X - "Your Generation" (from the Rhino punk box set)
• Moment of Triumph: Bettie Serveert - "Crutches" (hmmm... Pyrrhic victory?)
• Death Scene: Throwing Muses - "Shark/White Bikini Sand"
• Funeral Song: 50' Wave - "Glory Weed"
• End Credits: Jenny Toomey - "Patsy Cline"

Well, I'm really bored, so almost exactly a year later, let's see what I get. Call it "Karen: The Remake."

• Opening Credits: Babes in Toyland - "Mother"
• Waking Up: Liz Phair - "Ride"
• First Day of School: Bettie Serveert - "Geek" (Spot on!)
• Falling in Love: Danielle Howle and the Tantrums - "She Has a Past" (A little too spot on...)
• Fight Song: Rachael Yamagata - "The Reason Why"
• Breaking Up: Kristin Hersh - Untitled (On Sky Motel)
• Prom: X - "Soul Kitchen"
• Life is Good: Scrawl - "Out of Mind" (Seems like this should be the next one...)
• Mental Breakdown: Elastica - "Vaseline"
• Driving: Lisa Germano - "Cry Baby"
• Flashback: Throwing Muses - "Red Shoes"
• Getting Back Together: The Hangovers - "Sorry" (actually more about failing to get back together - "Sorry doesn't mean a thing anymore")
• Wedding: Cat Power - "Peking Saint"
• Paying the Dues: The New Pornographers - "Jackie, Dressed in Furs"
• The Night Before the War: Gillian Welch - "Wrecking Ball"
• Moment of Triumph: The Breeders - "Drivin' on 9"
• Death Scene: Throwing Muses - "Hate My Way" (guess I really must have...)
• Funeral Song: Kathleen Edwards - "Sweet Little Duck"
• End Credits: Lucinda Williams - "2 Kool 2 Be 4 Gotten" (rewl!)

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¹They changed forum software/hosting last year and the old posts were, I believe, lost. I had some funny signatures in there!