I found this online DVD catalog earlier today. A few hours later, I've had dinner, cleaned the living room, spent time with STB*, and cataloged all 270 DVDs that we own.
If it's a sucky movie - for example, it features Jean Claude Van Damme - it belongs to STB. He's a fan of full screen while I prefer wide screen, so we have a mix of formats.
It's easy to use. The site lets you rate movies and recommend them to other users. You can even track the DVDs you've loaned out. It's not quite as sweet as Library Thing, but it's close enough for me.
If you're interested, my stuff is listed over there ---> under "silver turtle.goodies"
*I've decided to refer to Silver Turtle Boyfriend as STB from now on because I'm a lazy typist.
I absolutely love the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes*. I was quite sad when Bill Waterson retired from the strip, and sometimes wish he was still writing/drawing it (even though it's been 11 years, exactly, tomorrow since it ended).
There's some definate truth and wisdom in the strip. And, I just realized, some visions of the future. Last Christmas Silver Turtle Boyfriend gave me (among other awesome gifts**) the Complete Calvin & Hobbes collection. Which I've read in it's entirety twice and now pick up at random. I also have an rss feed of daily Calvin & Hobbes. Today's feed gave me this:
Calvin was always dreaming of being a dictator....
*Check out the Silver Turtle Goodies over there ---> for your own daily allowance of Calvin & Hobbes
**Silver Turtle Boyfriend gives really, really great gifts. Last year also included an ipod shuffle & docking station, DVDs, CDs, books, and Gameboy Advance games. This year it was a whole collection of DMB live trax, the original Chinese release of Fearless, some other DVDs, some music books, and this really awesome collection of autographed House stuff.
Tomorrow morning I get to get up about an hour and a half earlier than usual. (I'm NOT a morning person).
Then I will drive to another office to do an audit, and then that manager comes to my office to do an audit. Then I have a phone interview for a position to manage my own office (same company, small promotion).
Then I will try to leave a little early, because I am auditioning to play in the "pit orchestra" for a children's choir/theatre production. (Paying gig - yay!) I'm auditioning on tuba & bass, because the bass part utilizes both instruments. I'm completely confident in my tuba playing. My bass playing is fine, except I'm no good at sight reading on bass, so I'm a little nervous for that part of the audition. (It's all sight reading, I haven't seen any of the music since I was just contacted a few days ago).
Yesterday I got this overwhelming feeling that I am supposed to just quit my day job and do music. While that would be the absolutely best thing in the world for me mentally, spiritually, emotionally, etc., it would leave me almost completely unable to pay my bills, so a very bad thing financially. I still have that same feeling, which is making me hesitant about my interview at work. It's not a "cold feet" thing with the possible new job. It's a "you're about to have a lot of opportunities to make money doing music" feeling.
What could be more exciting, more beautiful, and more Christmas-y than a few hundred tuba & euphonium players coming together to perform Christmas carols?
It started when I was quite young, going to see my uncles and then my brother perform. By 6th grade I, too, was a tuba player. (Several years later my cousin would join our "elite" family group of tuba players). By far, one of the most amazing musical experiences I witnessed as a child was TUBACHRISTMAS. And it's never quite Christmas at our house until we've been to see or play.
It started in NYC and now I don't think there's a city in America without one - or at least there shouldn't be. A lot of smaller towns host them, too. (I know, I've played in a couple). I usually play in the Akron one, which is typically the second-largest after NYC (in large part due to Tucker Jolly, professor of tuba @ University of Akron).
Imagine 400+ tubas - just the sight of it! Now imagine 400+ tubas, but about 1/2 are decorated - garland and tinsel, Christmas lights gleaming off of the shiny - or sometimes dull- silver and gold and brass. Christmas scenes across the bells. And there's every size and shape imaginable.
You would expect a few hundred tubas playing together to sound muddy and dull, boomy and - well - boring. I assure you it's anything from boring. It's loud and sometimes boomy and majestic.... the way the instruments blend together is astonishing. The tuba players, used to being the foundation of any band, play their melodies out whenever they get the chance, but pull back when they're supposed to. And hearing 400 tubas playing pianissimo (very quietly) is like a beautiful, quiet rumble of thunder.
Tuba Christmas is an audience-participation event, too. The tubas will play through a carol once, everyone listening in amazement at the beauty of the tubas. Then they play again, with the audience singing along. So now, the roaring of the tubas is accompanied by voices of all shapes and sizes. Except for when they play The Holly and the Ivy because no one except my mom knows the words to that carol. And I suspect she learned them immediately following her first TUBACHRISTMAS experience, knowing she would now be singing it every year.
You should all know what time of year it is by now. It's that time of year when Silver Turtle reminds all of her friends, colleagues, readers, and complete strangers that it's TUBACHRISTMAS season!
I recently heard that one city has a special Tuba Hannukah program as a part of their Tuba Christmas.
I'm working on my Ultimate Tuba Christmas Post, where I will start posting video and photos every year and just keep adding to it. But since I haven't been to Tuba Christmas yet this year, I decided to leave you with some footage someone shot of Baltimore's event.
At every city and town event I've been to, they have introduced the different members of the tuba family. Two things I adore about this introduction - all of the audience "oohing & awwing" with the cheers for their favorite kinds of tubas and the "Jewsophone".
Carol of the Tubas Bells (chosen for it's aural and visual appeal).
adventures of one little turtle in a big medium-sized city; including but not limited to: music, tuba playing, bass playing, photography, politics, religion, and general randomness
