What Is Wrong With This Picture?

. . o 0 O (Um, erm, isn't that MY doggie bed?)



Someone sure looks comfortable!

Totally Tori Tuesday

One of my favorite things to do with my love of Tori's music is to share it with other friends. A few months ago, I sent some Tori C/D's to Logo, and have just asked her, now that she's been listening to Tori for awhile, which song stands out as her favorite so far.
And so, here is Logo's choice, Putting The Damage On, which is a lovely tune complete with an orchestra accompanying Tori, and you can hear it on Boys For Pele, which is my all time favorite Tori release. I wish you could hear it right now! I have to say, you do have excellent taste, Miss Logo!



glue
stuck to my shoes
does anyone know why you
play with an orange rind
you say you packed my things
and divided what was mine
you're off to the mountain top
i say her skinny legs could use sun
but now i'm wishing
for my best impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i've got to worry
cause boy you still look pretty
when you're putting the damage on
don't make me scratch on you door
i never left you for a banjo
i only just turned around for a poodle
and a corvette
and my impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i've got to worry
'cause boy you still look pretty
when you're putting the damage on
i'm trying not to move
it's just your ghost
passing through
i said i'm trying not to move
it's just your ghost passing through
it's just your ghost passing through
and now
i'm quite sure
there's a light in your platoon
i never seen a light move
like yours can do to me
so now i'm wishing
for my best impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i've got to worry
'cause boy you still look pretty
to me
but i've got a place to go
i've got a ticket to your late show
and i'm worrying cause even still
you sure are pretty
when you're putting the damage on
yes
when you're putting the damage on
you're just so pretty
when you're putting the damage on




"And of course Damage speaks for itself. The song, being herself damaged, it's trying to teach myself about graciousness, and I have such a hard time with that. I have a very hard time. Damage was so essential for me to sing, it's one of the most difficult ones for me. I can look and have love and feelings for some of these people but... "-- Tori; B Side, 05/96

Me Me Monday

It's all about me, so deal with it!



I love the beach! I have always lived near the ocean. Mostly the Pacific Ocean, but I have also lived on an Island in the Gulf of Alaska, near the Red Sea, and the North Atlantic Ocean.
Growing up near the beach in Southern California, I spent thousands of hours roasting in the sun, yes, with baby oil and iodine! Thank goodness I am not the burning type. Every summer, my sister, friends and I would ride our bikes to the beach. I loved to splash in the waves, play frisbee, and just hang out with my friends.
When I moved to Northern California, I soon learned that the beaches here are an entirely different thing. No bikinis involved here! Oh no, a day at the beach here usually involves a warm jacket. You don't want to go swimming here either, it's freezing, the waves and riptide are entirely too dangerous, and besides, the biggest deterrent of all, SHARKS! Yes, sharks!

I've lived here for almost 14 years, and I have never, will never go into the Pacific Ocean up here!
















Anyway, here I am at the beach yesterday! (Click on the pic for the giant version so you can see how darned cute I am!) Have a great Monday everyone!

Spikey Wig Envy

Electra greedily envies the orange spikey wig. "I just have to have it," she said, "One day it will be mine!"

Favorite Photo of the Weekend.....

I'm reposting this today because I have "met" Pansi, one of Logos blogging pals, and well, I think Electra would like Pansi, Emrald, Aubvey and the rest over at their blog, The Pansi Files. Check her out if you haven't already!

ELECTRA OF THE ALIENZ



BTW, it's Friday the 13th. Don't be scared, the number 13 can be lucky if you let it!

Happy HNT everyone!

This picture was taken by the wonderful Mr Ratburn for last years Boobiethon. Hope you like it! ; )

Lime has requested more words: more words more words more words more words more words
more words more words more words more words more words more words more words!!!

Tori Tuesday

Today on Tori Tuesday, I feature Tori Amos' 2002 release, Strange Little Girls.




This is Toris 2002 release which is an all cover album.





One of my favorite treats on Strange Little Girls is that we get to see Tori take on the personnas from her songs. Tori as a brunette? Uh huh. How about a blonde? Yes, please!

It's a strange beast, the covers album. Many talented artists, and Duran Duran, have attempted to fill an entire album with cover versions and the vast majority have come seriously unstuck. Even Elvis Costello and David Bowie didn't come away completely unscathed. So, it's with apprehension that one approaches the new album by Tori Amos, an album of songs "written by men about women and delivered from a female perspective". It comes as quite a shock therefore to discover on listening that this is Amos' best work since her landmark debut Little Earthquakes.
No stranger to the idiosyncratic cover version (a radical restructuring of Smells Like Teen Spirit was an early B-side), Amos has chosen a variety of artists to cover from the predictable (Tom Waits, Neil Young) to the frankly bizarre (Eminem, Slayer). For anybody who is familiar with her music, it comes as no surprise to learn that the vast majority of these songs are stripped down versions, with Amos' piano and voice dominating. What is truly impressive however, is how she has taken these twelve songs and made them truly her own.
Lou Reed's New Age kicks off proceedings and rolls along nicely, but nothing prepares you for the next track, a version of Eminem's notorious 97 Bonnie And Clyde. With just a piano and Amos' breathy vocals, she sings the song from the perspective of the doomed mother locked in the trunk, listening to her husband talking to the child. The result is utterly chilling, and surpasses the original by some distance. Another eerie experience is listening to Slayer's Raining Blood, especially in the light of the recent tragic events in America. Intense piano chords strike, while Amos sings of "awaiting reprisals.....raining blood from the lacerated sky". It's disturbingly prophetic, and sadly renders her remarkable version almost unlistenable.
Other triumphs include a starkly beautiful version of Tom Waits' classic Time, and a pretty faithful retelling of Joe Jackson's often overlooked Real Men. This isn't to say that every track on here is an unqualified success. Amos makes a real hash of Neil Young's Heart Of Gold, replacing the original's frail beauty with a cod-metallic backing that does the song no favours at all. Even worse, she completely ruins Happiness Is A Warm Gun. The Beatles' original had a real sense of menace and sardonic humour. Amos punctuates her version with well meaning, but clumsy, samples of news reports about John Lennon's shooting and apologists from the National Rifle Association. This may have been tolerated, but she manages to stretch it out for ten minutes. Enough already.
In general though, this is a real return to form from Tori Amos. Recent albums have seen her lose her way somewhat, with her increasingly bizarre lyrics failing to be tied to many memorable songs. This covers album was an inspired move, and in one move she seems to have got her career back on track. Maybe Simon Le Bon should have a word?
- John Murphy

Visuals India

Favorite Photo of the Weekend

Eeeekk!!!! I am NOT a 6 year old boy on a motorcross bike! LOL

(If you're looking for , scroll down to previous post! )

Little Rita Rocks!



Little Rita and her awesome hair!




As most of you know, Little Rita has tons of long blonde hair. With a brunette mom and a red head dad, it's kind of trippy that she turned out that way! LR loves her long hair, except when it comes to brushing it. Caring for it becomes a time consuming, expensive, painful experience. So, we had heard about this organization called Locks of Love, which makes wigs for children and adults with hair loss from chemo and other diseases. Of course, they need people to donate their hair, because they use real human hair for most of their wigs....
Little Rita donated her hair! We cut 13" off on Wednesday. We couldn't be prouder of our girl, who is giving another child a chance to have lovely hair again.
If you want more info, you can check out the Locks of Love site at http://www.locksoflove.org/

Check out our beautiful girls new haircut!

Happy HNT!

I'M BAAACCKKKKK!!



You know what?

It's kind of hard to take a picture of your own back....so there I was, in the yurt, which explains the lattice in the background......naked, setting the timer, running over, sitting down, posing.....trying to get my hair and back to look cute! LOL, so, how'd I do? Happy HNT and Happy New Year!

This week Mr Ratburn cannot resist the song of the sirens.

Also, be sure to check out our group blog at Hijacked.

Whoa, we're famous! Check this out! India of all places! Woo hoo! Hats off to Osbasso!

Tori Tuesday

Like all artists, Tori Amos has been influenced by other musicians. Today on Tori Tuesday, I will feature some of the major musical influences of Tori's life.



"Naturally, I get exasperated with Elton John and Bernie Taupin simply because they wrote many of the great songs that just might have come to me if Elton and Bernie had been abducted by aliens. One the other hand, studying their song structures was sort of like being an architect apprenticing to one of the great songwriting teams of the twentieth century." Tori Amos



"Peter Gabriel taught me, when I worked with him a bit in the early 1990's, that attention to structure is what you have to develop if you're going to be a composer/songwriter generating effective work throughout your life. He said to me in 1995, "Look around you- you have these engineers. You could build a studio, a workshop. Tori, you never know; your workshop studio may be the only way you can keep your art from being tampered with if you are at war with your label but they still want product." (Little did I know that he was reading my tea leaves, forewarning me of an ominous battle that was yet to ensue...)" Tori Amos



My sense of song structure was developed by listening to Lennon and McCartney and Joni Mitchell. I think I was 10 when I said to one of my teachers, "What about the idea of John Lennon? Lennon and McCartney as modern-day Mozarts." That was just blasphemous....." Tori Amos






"...I started to listen to Led Zeppelin, focusing mostly on Robert Plant. I would listen to the records and kind of study him. I wanted to figure out why so many Christian fathers were intimidated by him. I remember this very well; the powerful men in the church didn't want Led Zeppelin records in the house. My father would come home from board meetings and say, "This Zeppelin thing is just a thorn in everybody's side." The girls were moving their hips in a way that was just primal, and it was something that couldn't be controlled or contained- they couldn't stop themselves. See, Robert Plant tapped into something there. The whole band was a part of this, but there was something about Robert that lifted it into a different category. Because he was part of, and continues on some level to be part of, the belief system I was trying to uncover for myself, that marriage of the sacred and the profane." Tori Amos

"As a pianist, my left hand was really kind of developed by listening to Stevie Wonder. I remember just listening to "Superstition" from Talking Book, and the whole of the Innervisions album, and studying them, as a player more than a writer or a singer." Tori Amos

Office fun!

For all my pals that work in cubicles, I present to you these fun activities to liven up your working space, or the cubicle of your coworkers.....LOL


Fun with packing peanuts!



Fun with newspaper!


Fun with sprouts!


Fun with foil!


Fun with post its!




Fun with power tools!

Clicky for big

How did you spend your New Years Eve? We went over to some friends house and played some silly games involving chocolate and beer.
(It's 10:45 am, I just woke up! I think this is the latest i've slept in about 10 years.)
Tell me what you did last night!