Kick Drum, High Hat

Happy Summer guys! It's real summer for me now that my class is over, grades were submitted and I only had one student complain! That is easily the least complaining I have ever had. It was a fun class, I think that Marcom might be my favorite class to teach.

So I have already posted a video for this song here in the past. MUCH different version, but still completely radical.



This was my introduction to Lissie, who sadly does not tend to live up to the bad-ass-ness displayed above. It's just such a great summer song I felt like giving you another version. If you like this one and you don't know the original, definitely check it out. Interestingly - I looked at the old blog and the Kid Cudi version had been viewed 9 million times when I first linked it, now it's up to TWENTY NINE million... Are we here at Golden Pigeon at least partially responsible? I like to think so. Nice work guys!

Stay tuned for more music coming soon...
We have one show a month coming up - Bon Iver in Sept (and maybe Pretty Lights if we can swing free tickets. Or is it worth it to pay, what do you guys think? I don't like to go to shows that make me feel at least a decade older than the normal attender), Head and the Heart and Thao and the Get Down Stay Down in October and We Were Promised Jetpacks and Bear Hands in November.

Be happy your freezer is working 'cause mine's not. I think my man really missed me when I was in FL last week because 1) our freezer broke 2) he forgot his dentist appt and 3) he got a ticket for talking on the cell phone while driving (and guess who he was talking to?). Normally, my man does not cook at all while I am away, but this time I encouraged him to try to eat what was in the freezer quickly so he was eating A LOT of vegan meatballs.

Maybe I will do a cooking post soon, yes? This week I will be making baked chimichangas (which I like to refer to as chimi-CHANGE-as from my days working at a Mexican restaurant in Tennessee. The Southern folks strangely do not have a grasp on Spanish pronunciations. I loved when people ordered Tecate - said Ta-KATE. Anyway that is a whole nother post), "chicken" piccata  and "chicken" marsala. Is there any interest in veganized versions of these recipes? My dear parents are doing meatless Mondays and I *think* I convinced them to make it vegan Mondays. I challenge you lovely readers to do the same. The piccata is amazing.

Fdog was happy to see me too. We are taking a anniversary trip to Cannon Beach in a couple weeks. You all know how Floyd loves the beach.

I can't believe it's been a year already since the wedding. I am happy to report that contrary to our fears (due to the fact that we never received a copy of the marriage certificate), we are indeed officially married. I called the city and checked on it this morning. Apparently, they don't send out certificates unless you pay $7 for the "decorative" version. And, as you all know, I am cheap so I did not opt to pay for that when we picked up the license. So it turns out that our friend WAS certified to marry us! And the paperwork did reach the city! It's kind of too bad, because I was thinking about having you all come back out to have another party for us all over again!

Stay tuned and be excellent to each other.
xo Pigeon

I Saw You First, It Was in a Dream

Kaliméra friends, happy long weekend.
Here's what we were doing last year this time.

Sasquatch 2010

After a long, arduous debate, which btw is how I make the vast majority of all decisions, we opted to not go to Sasquatch this year. It is a little bit painful now that the time is upon us. Back in the fall, we were watching the streaming video and twitter obsessively to get the word on who would be playing.

On the pro-side we had:

GIVERS - I saw you first

Sidenote: There was another version of this song on youtube, which was nausea-inducing and the sound was worse BUT it showed the band pulling balloons out of big trash bags. Priceless. It reminded me of poorman's this feat by AF @ Coachella.

We watched Arcade Fire's Coachella performance live on youtube - it was fantastic and to be honest, I *almost* felt like I was there. Actually, we got better views and closeups, with none of the portapotties and sweat. Kind of nice. Anyway - on the encore, these big balls dropped down, hundreds of them, and they were somehow synchronized and controlled to turn patterns of different colors. I love it. Chris Milk (of Wilderness Downtown video fame), fun stuff. So what I am saying is, GIVERS, hang in! Pretty soon you could go from 800 youtube views and filling up Glad bags with balloons you blew up yourselves, to multimedia art collaborations and headlining Coachella, it could happen!

Back to the point: This band played at the WOW with Ra Ra Riot (also awesome and Sasquatch alums) and we didn't go because we are too tired and old. Big mistake.
Other pluses of 2011 lineup: Wilco, Head and the Heart, Iron and Wine (although I don't think that a festival is ideal for this at all, hence we'll see him at Crystal on Tuesday instead), Yeasayer, Cold War Kids (although we just saw them, and one member of this unit (the male member) is not so interested), Beach House(!!!), Sharon Jones and Dap-Kings, Local Natives, Matt & Kim, Deerhunter, Sleigh Bells (who would be perfect at a festival I think), Cotton Jones... Plus the couple dozen I have never heard of that would probably go on to become next year's favorites.

You'd think that would be enough to do the trick. But I am greedy. And unreasonable.

I wanted Arcade Fire. I wanted Black Keys. I wanted Ween again.

The first indication that we might not go this year came with the announcement of headliner Foo Fighters. Not really in the same class as Ween ('10) - for me anyway. Meh. Then the big names kept coming and and more meh.
Death Cab. Decemberists. Bright Eyes. Modest mouse. These bands do not excite me.
Then there was the portapotties, the trash, the lack of any vegan food, the field mice...

Oh wait, then we thought about the fact that technically - I am a student. On the quarter system.

That means next week is exam week.

And how I have COMPREHENSIVE exams in two weeks. For the (blissfully) unaware, these are tests where you are expected to demonstrate everything that you learned in the first 2 years of your PhD education and you need to pass if you want to continue in the program. you have 96 hours to complete a set of four questions. You have 10 pages to answer each question. The dreaded comps are looming large.

Then I need to get ready to teach a brand spanking new class.

It's going to be intense.

So, yeah, if you were wondering, we aren't going to the festival this year. Does this mean I am a (kind of) grown up?

Probably not, since we decided to binge locally on the Sasquatch ripple effect. Cotton Jones tonight. Maybe Cotton Jones again Saturday. Back up to Portland for Head and the Heart and Iron & Wine (aforementioned).

And stay tuned for another post this weekend about last weekend. We went to the Ms. Whiteaker pageant! And we played poker! We stayed up til 4am listening to records! Who says I am grown up?

Gimme Little Drink...

This post is kind of about a drink. Well, it's gonna start out that way, who knows where it'll get to by the end, BUT that gives me a great excuse to share this treasure with you:

I absolutely love this video - it is so cool to see Jack White with that huge grin on his face, getting totally starstruck by the Stones. I don't think I've even seen him crack a hint of a smile before or since. It's a clip from Shine a Light, which is a great watch in its entirety, but this was really the highlight for me. Enjoy. 

How can it be, that at 31 years of age, I get the opportunity TWICE in one month for a fishbowl? For the uninitiated (and reading this blog that is probably only momma bird, though I may have told her already about at least one of these incidents), a fishbowl is a big bowl full of various liquors. If you actually see this being "mixed" it's even scarier. The Ritz used to put swedish fish in the bottom, quite a nice touch I think. Thanks Stacia). 

I have not even seen a fishbowl in about 10 years at least, but now, two times in row. In different states. 

This is what 20+ academics at marketing symposium in Nebraska do afterhours. Who would have thought it? Sorry for the poor photo quality, having only my Blackberry. I wasn't expecting such a photo op to present itself that night. I have never been to a marketing symposium/conference/consortium/etc and I may write more about it another time, but for today all I have to say is this was surprising.
And I was there! But, my friends, this was the second time.

Sidetrack: The first was in Hood River on the previously mentioned ski trip. Somehow I forgot to tell you all that we went out *a bit* after skiing. There is a fantastic brewery there Double Mountain, but it closed pretty early. We went down to "Jack's" (I put this in quotes because there was no name on the outside and no one seemed sure that was the real name) - Chinese restaurant by day, club (?) by night. They had a variation of the fishbowl never before seen which was two size choices (what?! large and extra large) served in those huge chinese family style soup bowls. And they didn't call them fishbowls, they called them Scorpions. A stranger we met tried to get us to share one with him. We politely declined. Several times.

The symposium was a great experience, but the flight back was epic (bad way). We flew from Lincoln to CHICAGO to SAN FRANCISCO to EUGENE... We had been flying for about 5 hours already when I looked to that lovely little screen that must be meant for hypnosis only because who ever looks at the progress of the plane and thinks "wow, that's further than I thought!" and we were flying RIGHT OVER LINCOLN. Thanks travel agent. And I am serious, this flight had to be booked through a travel agent. It's shocking with the value that these people add that they are in obsolescence, isn't it? Oh, and the 5 hour layover in SF was a nice touch.

I also wanted to mention that spring is in the air back in Eugene.

My massive magnolia in FULL BLOOM. Missed it last year because I was in FL.

Spring means

1) Baseball.

For the first year in forever I get to PLAY softball. I used to love to play when I was in high school, but that was a while ago. Yeah. I'm a little nervous because it's been a long time and I am playing on an established team that is a group of people who passionately and intensely work out together so we'll see how I stack up. I did have the best batting average on my team. In 1995. 

My man and I got some gloves. I couldn't believe he found his (lefty) at Goodwill. I'm pretty sure that mine belonged to a young boy in its past life. 

And just because I am talking about baseball does not mean I want to talk about the Sox and their 0-6 record. Or the Rays and their acquisition of Johnny Damon, Manny or even the returning, AK47-toting Longoria. 

Now all I can think of is It Was A Good Day by Ice Cube. Let's hope Evan never has to use his A.K.

2) Spring means winter quarter is over. The evaluations are in and I did not win any popularity contests. I don't want to go off on too much of a rant here, but can we just do away with student evaluations? In the words of a sage advisor, you can't let twenty year-olds affect your self-esteem. Evals really are just not helpful. Case in point (these are real word-for-word "feedback" I get from students):

Good: 

"I really enjoyed taking Cat's class. Her teaching style was really great for me. She is definitely very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject."

Or not so good: 

"Her expectations were completely unachievable. Although Cat's in-class teaching was somewhat satisfactory, her out of class techniques and methods were completely unfair and unable to be met" 

(This student also called me "completely irrational" which I can almost take as that she learned something about consumer behavior since I show the Dan Ariely talk Predictably Irrational. Great video, great book btw. If you have an extra 20, check it out. If not just finish up here. In fact, if she had just said predictably rather than completely as her adverb here I would have been able to laugh about it sooner.) I would like to mention to the readers that the average final grade of the class was an 84, highest I've ever given and highest allowed by the business school grade scale guidelines. 

How about this?

Cat was awesome and fun, really enjoyed the class!

Counterpoint:

She didn't seem very friendly either.

These two comments are FROM THE SAME STUDENT:

"Just an overall dissatisfaction with the professor" and "Good class and relevant material"

So are these two (different student):

"lectures can get boring" and "interesting material"

At least this quarter no one mentioned their wish that I brought donuts more often like a previous student had used his evaluation to let me know.

I have never brought donuts. 

Maybe I should?

Don't Forget, Sometimes It Goes The Other Way Too.

Um, we just saw The Warriors (for the first time)...
"WE got the streets, suckers! Can you DIG IT?"

I mean, if that doesn't make you want to check it out, I can't do anything for you. But, chances are, you have already seen it, as I've been feeling like the only (two) who missed this gem.
Of course, I was very inspired by the dj/greek chorus. What a blast.
Also, we saw a great documentary last night called Dust & Illusions about the Burning Man Festival. Very enlightening. I have to admit, I did not know there was such a focus on group art creation, which makes it a little cooler, a little more interesting, and not at all any more likely for me to attend. I once had a very heated "discussion" with a friend of my man's who was raving about the 'social experiment' aspect and the bartering society. I did feel bad after I found out he was a local (semi) celebrity who was a big contributer to the committee at the local art museum that my man and I belonged to, but hey, it's a little silly, right? How do you get all that stuff that you 'barter' with at Burning Man? Don't you BUY it with MONEY before you get there? And, you leave no trace right? But where does the trash go when you leave? It's still trash! My CB text book even talks about Burning Man and how it is an anti-consumerist movement.... and we all know - I like to consume. Plus, I thought camping out at Sasquatch for 3 days was roughing it. But it was a neat film and lots of characters and some mind-blowing art (even in a sober movie theater experience that made us feel just a little squarer than usual).

Anyway, here's a new tune for you to listen to while you read along.


"Mach Bach" by Empress Hotel

I am kinda geeken out about cameras today... I have unearthed my lomo after a conversation about art with my man and realizing how long it's been since I have done something creative.

My man is in-deep drawing a comic book for a friend who is writing the story. Am I super jealous and wishing that I was writing the story? No, of course not, why do you ask?

My man has always been into comics, I so have I (to a lesser extent). I used to read all the Disney comics like Uncle Scrooge and all that. But now I have LOVE for Frank Miller and especially Charles Burns. Seriously, have you guys seen Charles Burn's work? We are watching an animated film tonight (?) that he contributed to. Gotta love Portland hipness. We were in the Historical Mississippi neighborhood, trying to buy a dunny (did not happen - man, that store is never open) and ended up at the comic book store (Bridge City, I believe) and then stopped for a coffee. The guy behind the counter saw our purchase and told us about the flick, and did mention three times that you could rent it from the library. Apparently renting movies from the library (can you do that?) is much hipper than, say, having Netflix?

So next week I should have some lomo pics to show off, depending...
Can I find a store to develop real film?
Also, does 120 film that expired 4 years ago still work?
Holga is all about "experimentation."

When I unloaded my beloved, normal Canon EOS camera, I found that I never posted my pics from February on. Valentine's was very nice this year.

We did *not* change our names to Matt and Anne. M & A have moved and this gift certificate has gotten passed around my man's place of work.
His friend asked the group one night: "Does anyone ever go to that art film theater by campus?"
Pigeon: "YES"
Him: "Do you want a gift certific-"
Pigeon: "YES"
We used it to go see my favorite movie of all time, True Romance, the midnight show. I know, it's just too good, right? The big screen?! Did I talk about this already? If I did, I am sorry, but it was really cool.

I made vegan chocolate covered strawberries and Thin Mints (yes, ripped off the Girl Scouts). They didn't turn out too photogenic, but they made up for it in delicious.

You can kinda see the dough in there, chillin.

You may be wondering, why so much time for cooking, cameras, movies, blogging and the like?

I am on spring break. So glad to finished with the quarter and on the (short) countdown to my comprehensive exams, which strike in June. After that, I will no longer be taking courses, only working on papers and my dissertation. 11 weeks away. So this break, I decided to stay in Oregon to get some work done. It's Thursday and no work has been done.

Here's where I was 1 year ago today. 

Driving up to Mt Hood for our weak annual (one) day of snowboarding. It rained the whole way up, but thankfully became snow and pretty near perfect snow by the time we hit the lodge. I felt lucky, especially when F said, "Didn't I tell you last time I skiied at Mt. Hood it was raining?"

Frank never lets me eat here. 

Doesn't it remind you of the Double R? Or is it the RR?

Now we are back and I wanted to give you some big news:

Ninkasi is making 6 packs.

Now I am just bragging. I got this sucka in my hot little hands.

Clear vinyl is not as cool to play as it looks.

Very difficult to see the tracks when you are trying to play something specific live on the radio in a dark studio. No one minds hearing the last 30 seconds of the previous song first, right?

I felt like I had something else I wanted to write about, but maybe I should end here. On the bragging note. Did I mention only 200 of these beauts pressed?

See you next time. 

Choose whatever metaphor you like

Have you missed me?

Because I missed you.

The good thing about not writing a blog for a while is that there is a lot of material.
Right?
Hmmm.

 Look at those gd'ed hippies!

The big news around here is berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (that's my drumroll)........ I want to be a drummer.
IT SNOWED! I take this to mean that all my complaining worked!

Unfortunately, this beautiful snow is long gone now and not to return.

But I sure appreciated and enjoyed it while it lasted.

So today is my first day of vacation. I am not doing anything school-related all day. All blog, reading (pleasure reading, NOT journal articles or text books), shopping, groceries, radio show, run. I better get this day going.

Except I did have to email a student who had an 86.1 average why I couldn't give him an A-. Those crazy kids.
So reading - I am reading The Help, partially on the recommendation of my fellow blogger and friend. It's a great book, I am plowing through it, happily, because I have a long plane ride to Florida coming up and I am hoping to bring The Girl Who Played With Fire.... Christmas Break is the time to reduce that stack of "to be reads" and add to it of course, what is a better Christmas gift than a book?

So groceries - I don't think that a lot of vegans are reading this blog, but on the off chance that some other crazy vegan is googling around and finds me - we have been eating GOOD lately.
I just found a recipe for VEGAN FETTUCCINE ALFREDO! I have tried a lot of this lady's inventive recipes, all are delish. Dinner tomorrow. I wanted to make it tonight, but my man is getting together with his band this afternoon and then we have radio show at 8pm. He doesn't want me to get mad at him when he gets in the door at 7:35 and we have to eat in the studio. Again.

You might think friends, that being a vegan is not fun on Thanksgiving. And you may have even teased me... one word - TOFURKEY. It's good. Believe it.

Before our home meal we had a pre-Thanksgiving meal from Cornbread Cafe, which was amazing. I love that place, but I have to admit, after every meal I feel like I need to sit on the couch for two hours and watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It's all their fault I tell you.

My man and I have to split when we go there. 

And, jumping ahead, we ate there again last night and had the Eugenewich. Unreal. Any food that causes spontaneous moaning is, embarrassing, yet wonderful. It is southern-fried tofu, barbecue sauce (what is BBQ sauce? Seriously, I want to know), fried onion rings and carrots, tomato, soy cheese...

But for the "homemade" part.... Look at this dork!

I can't believe how predictable we are. But we had tofurkey for the first time and it was so good. So good.

Look at that Mound on the right! Momma bird loves 

to tell me how my man is always hungry. He's fine! 

We ate early and headed to good old KWVA. It was a nice way to celebrate. I am thankful for our radio show. Last week we did a 90s show that was FIERCE if I do say so myself. My man heard the "Best DJ in Eugene" (as voted by Weekly readers) say something about how 90s music sucks and the 90s were the worst decade musically. Well, we had been planning a 90s show for a while and that was all it took to challenge him to a music-awesome-off duel. It was really fun. Tonight we are doing "Some Like it Hot." We have been watching some classics lately and getting inspired. Last night it was Citizen Kane. What a fantastic movie, I forgot how great it is. Wow. Rewatch it if you haven't lately! Call to action alert!

Tangent - in order to get really psyched (90s!) for the 90s show, we went to the midnight showing of Pump Up the Volume. My Christian Slater Supercrush returned in full force. Also, we were the ONLY ones in the theater. Afterwards (like around 1:30am) we decided to grab a beer and went to Max's. Didn't realize at the time that

1) super close to campus 

PLUS

2) night before last Duck's football game

EQUALS

Pigeon's students present. And wasted.

At least I was sober.

See you soon guys. xo

Yo Teach!

Why do I love my man? Because when I was worried about my first day of teaching in over a year, he reassured me:

"I know you're smart - I've seen you rap!"
Just so you guys know those blue lines are links.... it makes the blog a lot funnier, trust me. That's right you have to click the link to see Jason "Rushmore" Schwartzman inspire kids with his hipness. I hope I can inspire the kids as much as Yo Teach! Did anyone see Funny People? That movie was hilarious! I wonder how Yo Teach! would have dealt with Max Fisher... So this reminds me of something that tends to happen in my classroom... um, I get sidetracked.

"Best play ever, man."

But friends, I really do like teaching. I haven't been at the head of the class since last spring and it felt good to be back. What is better than having a captive audience for 2.5 hours while you ramble on about stuff that you think is super interesting? Not much that I have found so far.  I'll be teaching for two months so I'll be sure to report the quote of the week or some other foolishness of that sort. 

This week was busy because momma bird was here and we had the normal frenzy of activity. Lots of shopping, movie watching, yardwork and PROJECTS. I saw Hot Tub Time Machine and Toy Story 3 in the same 48 hours. We saw the sights in the big city. 

Ok, ok, Portland, now I believe you - you are the rose city. 

The cool thing about my neighborhood is if you put something you don't need anymore, such as old pots and pans, two semi-functional vacuums, piles of high-school era clothing, etc., outside in the yard someone who needs it takes it in a matter of minutes. Guys, there was a bra out there. Someone took it. Let's hope it was for a costume for this:

Wedding Friday night (not ours). Ms. Whiteaker pageant Saturday. I think it's too late for me to enter the competition but I can't wait to see the evening wear and the 3 minute talent portions. It's gonna be even better than Rollerderby.

"I can't read and don't care and education is awful"

I don't really like cornbread and I'm pretty sure I've never had butterbeans, but this song sure is sweet.

Carolina Chocolate Drops

A lot has happened since the last blog.

I discovered slugs in my garden. Their days are numbered.

Did a couple radio shows.

I turned 31.

I presented for twenty-five (count 'em, two-five) minutes about my structural equation model.
Thusly completing my first year as a doctoral student. The same presentation that caused me to have a mental breakdown in my PhD advisor's office on my birthday.

But the most important, raddest thing that happened is that momma bird sent me this gift:

My iPad makes me feel really cool. Until my dad told me it's for "seniors." I don't care. i LOVE it.

To celebrate my first day off I decided to procrastinate.

Because even though I am done being a student for a couple months, in 12 days I go back to being a teacher. I should be writing my syllabus and composing assignments and reading the textbook. 

See my textbook there, right under the People Magazine?

Or I could be taking care of the furious ant problem that has been brewing here in our home sweet home. But you know what? My man really likes handling that type of stuff. (Please, friends, do not ever do a google image search for "ant infestation." I don't know what I was thinking)

I could have taken Floyd to the dog park. This dog thinks I am seriously boh-ring. 

I tell him only boring dogs get bored. 

Or just cleaning in general, since my mom will be getting here in 2 days (!!!). Confirming wedding stuff... But, damn, it felt good to do nothing. 

And by nothing I mean napping

mixed with feeding my Bravo addiction.

Did you hear Bethenny has her own show? It's all queued up

Tomorrow we are celebrating my birthday with a trip to the Oregon Coast (as I was somewhat otherwise occupied on the real day having mental breakdowns in professors' offices, see above). I hope it is warmer than the last time we went.

At least we had the place to ourselves

Do you think Floyd will like the water? Stay tuned...

He looks nervous, right?

Allow me to reintroduce myself....

So the FIRST blog post. I wanted to yell that, but yell it quietly mind you. I just found the best way to procrastinate... but really, even this shiny new blog can't distract me from "How Well Do Item Parcels Represent Conceptually Designed Latent Constructs? A Two-Facet Approach" for too long.

If I promise to not talk too much about being a PhD student and how tough it is, do you promise to read my blog? Come on, I read your blog....