In order to wear a Girly XL tee from Threadless, I would have to lose a good four inches of boobness (oh, the horror!) and shrink my waist by about one more size.
Maybe once I do that, I’ll start trolling Threadless for funky tees. Until then, I will enjoy the Guys XL tee that Aaron got me for Christmas.
After a weekend of cooking, driving, and eating, Aaron and I drove up to Ann Arbor to meet a couple of podcasters, Erin and Noah — better known as the Ninjaconsultants.
It was a little awkward at first, meeting people we only knew from teh intarweb, but we all relaxed after a while. After we took a turn around Wizzywig and purchased our respective geeky otaku goodness (I got the cutest Nyanko Burger stickers and Post-Its and a Totoro wallscroll), we retired to a nearby coffee shop for some mobile recording.
We got some beverages and sat at a table in the back of the shop. After we’d all had the chance to get comfortable, and we finally got around to talking about some anime-related stuff (good fodder for Aaron’s podcast), Aaron busted out the iRiver and his new, handmade lapel microphones. We had two mics between the four of us, so Noah had the idea of clipping their mic to Erin’s wooden cappuccino stirrer and propping it up between them in his empty glass. We did the same, clipping our mic to both of our straws in one glass, making a bit of a bipodal affair leaning against the edge of Aaron’s cup. It may seem like quite the jury-rigged setup, but it worked smashingly.
We recorded for two hours.
We talked about all sorts of things: Star Wars, the homeless, anime conventions, public transportation, probably dozens of not-quite-related topics. (Aaron’s going to have a fun time sorting it all out later, so he can actually use some of it on his show…) But it was a really good time, as I’d hoped it would be.
Whether anyone’s interested or not, I’ll probably post a heads-up here when Aaron airs parts of the interview (and I use the term “interview” loosely). The audio quality turned out fantastic, we got a good amount of decent content, and Erin and Noah recorded a few bumpers and IDs for Aaron’s show. I think there’ll be a few fun one-liners he can use, too.
As we were leaving, I commented, “I feel so counterculture, podcasting from a coffee shop…”
Are you hip to it, daddy-o? Yeah.
Saturday: Food preparation. Making the plum pudding, the Italian wedding cookies, and assembling the green bean casserole. Opening presents.
Sunday: Christmas Day in Westlake (Cleveland). An all-day affair, with travel time.
Monday: Meeting fellow podcasters in Ann Arbor after lunch. Perhaps doing some mobile podcasting. Visiting Wizzywig.
We’ve got a full weekend ahead. Maybe we’ll even get to relax at some point. 😉
[also available on flickr]
I was coming home from my 45 minutes of photographing Christmas lights in the ‘hood, and I had just about given up. An occupant of the first house I had photographed had come to the door, ostensibly wondering what a honkey with a camera and a tripod was doing in the dark in front of their house. That kicked up my normal photography paranoia an extra notch, and really threw me off for the rest of my shoot.
Anyway, as I said, I was coming home after not having gotten very many good shots. I almost turned the camera off, but decided that I would leave it on until I got back to my house (another block away). Almost as soon as I said that to myself, I saw this wonderful inflatable snowman and his tree-friend.
This turned out to be the best shot of the evening.
I remember the day well. I was six years old, and it was December 1982. I was sitting at the kidney-bean-shaped table in the front of my first-grade classroom, with the five or six other kids in my Advanced Reading group.
Mrs. Henighan asked us, “How many of you believe in Santa Claus?”
I raised my hand, of course. What was there not to believe? I didn’t realize there was any believing or not-believing involved. Santa had magic keys to my apartment, and brought me toys on Christmas Eve. End of story.
Only one or two other kids raised their hands.
The teacher then asked that fateful but inevitable follow-up question of the nonbelievers: “Why don’t you believe in Santa Claus?”
One kid said that Santa’s handwriting looked just like their Dad’s. Another said that they’d peeked out one Christmas Eve and seen their parents putting presents under the tree. I think one person said they’d never believed.
I was in shock and denial.
When I got home from school that day, I told my Mom what had happened, and asked her if Santa Claus was real. Of course, she then told me the story of Santa: how there once was a real man who gave toys to children on Christmas, and how we now celebrate Santa Claus as a symbol of the Spirit of Christmas.
It made sense, and the knowledge somehow made me feel a little older. A little less young.
Of all the things I don’t believe in anymore, I still believe in Santa Claus, after all this time. With all my prickly annoyance at insipid Christmas music and my denial of the faith in which I was raised, I still believe in the spirit of giving.
I also find it amazing that so many different brands of myth and folklore could come together to create this magical, mythical caricature of jollity and charity. Saint Nicholas must have been one hell of a guy.
