[Hobo Rocket.]

Thanks for the heads up! Great stuff to drift away on...

Now I think of it, M, I remember listening to a great album by Pond a while back called Hobo Rocket. It may well have been you or Mr. Waves who recommended it to me.

Talking of TI, it was certainly you who introduced me to another great album, Lonerism.

You won't believe this, but it was only today that I discovered Kevin Parker and company were from Australia!!!!

Ah yes. Lots of great music comes from the land down under! You won't believe this either, but I only relatively recently started listening to Pond more! The Weather sits by my record player as I type, so I've come a ways, haha.

@Summer_Days, I was on a "Cloudbusting" kick for about a month. Wild Nothing does a great cover of it, too.

Listening to "Try" a lot by Neil Young, Homegrown out next month!

^ What are the odds? I just made a playlist like that tonight. Still a work in progress... Also on the lookout for new bands that sound like that.

Thanks for the heads up! Great stuff to drift away on...

The whole album is great; "Sweep Me Off My Feet" is a jam, too. Even though I'm a huge Tame Impala fan, I'm only now really getting into Pond. But hey, that's how it goes.

I might like Man It Feels Like Space Again almost as much. They're all great!

But... currently listening to Alvvays. I'm alvvays listening to them!  

The Weather by Pond. The vinyl just came today (edit: i should note for me. the album's been out since 2017). "Paint Me Silver" is my favorite track. Rec'd if you want some Australian psych rock heavily influenced by Pet Sounds/Smile.

By the way, I was told these forums were defunct. Gone. Lost to the interwebz. I was wrong!

I've been adding kimchi to everything lately after ordering a veggie dog with kimchi as a topping.

Currently eating a mix of veggies (potatoes, kale, a little cauliflower, and avocado) with my probiotic cabbage on top. Know that you should add it the very end of cooking or else you'll cook out all those beneficial bacteria :O

Not a pet peeve exactly, but someone owes me over $200 in utilities, and it's pissing me off. Granted, he's in a tight financial situation because his cat just got dental surgery, but... this poor cat had a dental disease, and he was feeding him cheap dry food. He never took any preventative measures, and it wasn't until his cat was literally pawing at his face in pain until he did something (instead of doing it earlier when it would have been cheaper and they wouldn't have had to remove most of his teeth?) And now, a few days after surgery, his cat had already gone back on dry food.... Also, he never cleans his litter box.
To boot, this person also drinks on a daily basis, supposedly to help him sleep, but using alcohol to fall asleep every night just causes insomnia and dries your bank account. He's either at bars or downing a six pack (or both) every night. I'm not living with this person anymore, fortunately, but he has literally never paid me for utilities in the year we were roommates... Maybe I sound harsh, but I don't know how you can be 28 and not have any financial responsibility (or know how to take care of your cat!).

(this is not Bubbly Waves, to be clear. Bubs and I had to suffer through shitty roommates together.)

I don't even understand how someone could every do that. But I guess you learn something new ever day...

And the captain's wit is at it again!

Speaking of, well, improper speaking, someone I know keeps referring to carbon monoxide as CO2. What happened to basic understandings of suf- and prefixes?

- people dragging their private problems into workplace, telling it everybody as if they care (me & Mikie in emails agreed it's annoying as hell)

One of my former co-workers was like this. Nice enough guy, but every time I came into work he would ask how I was, only because I would reply, "Well. how are you doing?" and then have him explain how horrible his day has been. Basically, he only asked how I was to start a conversation about him. Oh well..

[prevention]

There's also the issue before dealing with mental (un)health, which is asking why we aren't mentally healthy. I came across Johann Hari, who has some interesting things to say about the general lack of fulfillment in our lives that inflames mental health issues. Others discuss it as well, naturally. I think that's even more important, frankly, than treatment, although probably less urgent. (You've got to treat the immediate problems, but at some point we have to ask why we keep having those problems at rates that seem higher than we or anyone has had in the past, as I understand it, anyway.)

Yes, totally! We have no understanding of prevention. It's good to talk about your mental health even if you aren't feeling sad! I think it's also important to note that our society tends to suppress men's emotions, yet they're more likely to be the one wielding the gun.

Our lack of prevention is exactly why people treat symptoms, not the causes. I bet you that everyone who's on high blood pressure/cholesterol/etc., medication, could go off of it if they worked out a few days a week, ate some more vegetables, and drank fewer beers. Big Pharma reaps the benefits of our inability to take care of ourselves. Of course, some conditions are influenced by genetics, but for the most part, I think we're just lazy. I ran into someone recently who immediately went on beta-blockers for hunting-related anxiety/blood pressure problems. I'll get anxious to the point of hitting my head on the wall, but I'm trying hard to avoid relying on medication because I want to avoid feeling like that in first place. Again, I'm not saying that medication can't be the answer, but when it's our go-to solution, we need to re-think our strategy.

Frankly, I think people need to get out in nature more. Breathe some fresh air, exercise has been proven to help mental and physical health. Get off the couch, stop watching the news (whose sole purpose, no matter what network you watch, is to create ratings so they will sensationalize anything to get them). Lay off watching television all the time, crack open a book. Like undercover says: meditate, it’s a great way to calm your mind down, and you seriously do feel great afterwards. That hygge practice seems perfectly logical: your home is your nest in this world - why wouldn’t you make it as beautiful and comfortable as possible? Lay off the alcohol, it’s a depressant and when ingested in copious amounts never leads to anything good - it actually warps your brain chemistry over time if you become dependent on it. Don’t rely on anyone else for your happiness - learn a hobby that you can always carry with you no matter who you’re with in life. Play an instrument, learn how to paint. Go birdwatching. I think people spend too much time filling their minds with useless media (via internet, movies, shows, video games) that we lose touch of what the real world is - perhaps that’s why more and more people feel a disconnect with it, and feel anxiety about life. Anyways, I’m rambling.

As an environmentalist, I fully support this. For the most part, we evolved in the wild (that's including the hundreds of thousands of years preceding our first civilizations), so there's a valid reason for why being in the woods comforts us. We're currently not treating the Earth we evolved on very nicely, let alone appreciating it which has enormous mental and physical health benefits...

There is also an obvious cultural issue here, and I don't just mean gun ownership, or hunting, or self protection. Call it "mental health" if you want, obviously it's that on some level. People don't shoot people unless they are mentally ill, in my opinion. (Does a sane person decide to shoot someone?) So ... what makes Americans batshit crazy that they disproportionately shoot people? It isn't just the existence of guns. There is something wrong with us. There is something wrong with our minds. Our culture. How we raise children. Something. I don't know what it is.

We're absolute sh*t when it comes to addressing mental health. I struggle with anxiety and low self-esteem. I was never encouraged to "go seek help," although I love my parents they never seemed to really "get" my emotional struggles and often made me feel bad for feeling bad, and I have ended up suppressing thoughts that just end up in more suffering. Like most Americans, I was taught to just suck it up, get over it, and get my confidence back.

Ha. Just like that? Americans are supposed to believe that the inner city kid who's been ostracized their entire like just needs to "get back on his feet?" Or that the workshorse who never gets to see his kids and envies his more successful coworkers and suffers from back pain is supposed to just keep going on? It's no wonder we suffer from mental health problems, from mild depression to people unstable enough to shoot young children without question.

I don't have the answer to gun control. What I do know is that there is resistance, or at least a lack of awareness, for practices such as mindfulness, meditation, even going to therapy. When I told my parents I wanted to see a therapist, their reaction was, "Can't you just talk to us?" and while talking to friends and family can help, people need to know that there is nothing wrong with seeking help. People need to get out of the the mindset that if they turn to these methods, that there isn't anything wrong with them.

Basically, Americans don't know how to deal with their emotional problems. Poor parenting, lack of education (no one is taught how to take care of themselves, both mentally, but also how to eat properly, budget, etc... an unhealthy diet and debt are sure to cause poor mental health), suspicion towards "hocus-pocus" concepts like meditation, and in general, not cultivating a culture of love and acceptance.

While Eastern tradition combat stress with meditation and breathing, over in Denmark they have a practice called hygge (pronounced "hoo-ga"). It roughly translates into "warmth and comfort," and the whole concept is about making yourself as cozy as possible. That means warm lighting (reddish/orange hues), lots and LOTS of candles, taking a warm bath, cooking your favorite meal over the stove, filling your shelves with welcoming decor, books, and art. I don't see to many homes in the States like this, and let's not even get started with the harsh, fluorescent-lit, sterile office cubicles many are forces to work in.

So yes, there is something terribly wrong with the way we live. I think we're slowly opening up to these foreign concepts of making ourselves happy, but until we fundamentally change the way we live, mental health may largely go unaddressed...

C'mon, smileysmile, where's your new music thread?

I'll have to update this more later, but here's the most important update for 2018 so far—NEW BEACH HOUSE MUSIC! Album projected for this spring.

PREPARE TO CRY FROM ITS BEAUTY:
https://youtu.be/08qd-vsHbaY

I forgot to mention this one yesterday. 

Beer snobs

I can handle music snobs (I've been accused of being one, but I've paid to see Poison in concert, so.....), movie snobs, etc etc. 

But pretentious beer snobs are the worst.  "Oh, you're drinking a Miller Lite, why not try something with flavor instead of that trash beer?  Here's a Bourbon Barrel Cask Ginger Root Infused Sour IPA." 

Maybe I buy so called "trash beer" because I don't think it's worth it to spend up to $14 for a sixer of craft stuff, or up to $8.00 for a draft at the bar.  Maybe, I actually like the taste.  It was good enough for my grandfather, and my parents. 

I had a coconut porter that was damn tasty last night, but I agree there's no need to put other people down cos they enjoy a Miller Lite over a bitter IPA (porters and pilsners are better anyway, haha).

If you drink Natural Ice, then we have a problem. I'm perfectly fine drinking PBR, and I had my first Coors last night (because the coconut porter got me kind of drunk and I wanted to keep that up). Rural IL has much more affordable craft beers than the heart of Seattle, which doesn't surprise me, of course.

I made a list a while ago, and I'm finally gonna post it. It's a lot longer than I remember it being:
Things That Irk Me:
- People who wear athletic clothing (like Nike and Lululemon) but don’t actually go to the gym. Gym clothes tend to be pricey, and the fact that these people are able to both flaunt their wealth and not use the clothing for its intended purpose is just astonishing. (I’m a runner so maybe this pisses me off more, i dunno)
- Improper waste disposal: Rinse out your dirty recyclables, pick up litter if there’s a trash nearby, compost whenever you can. And please don't put that glass bottle in the trash when there's a recycling bin RIGHT NEXT TO IT.
- People who ask, “Where do you get your protein?” after informing them of my vegetarianism. I eat a ton of eggs, an assortment of vegetables, rice and beans, the occasional fake meat, tofu, and chia seeds, flaxseeds, peanut butter, greek yogurt…. Stop asking if I miss meat or feel weak, goddammit.
- People who wear shoes as slippers, consequently ruining the heel
- Tiny dogs, mostly because they’re such an extreme and pretty cruel example of selective breeding and how it can ruin a species. I don’t have anything against tiny dogs themselves (it’s not their fault), just the stupid humans that bred them.
- Using “Yea” instead of “Yeah.” Yea indicates you’re voting in favor of something, not casually saying, “Yes,” and is pronounced differently.
- People who get annoyed when I ask them if they want a bag (I used to be a grocery cashier). They act like I’m stupid, exclaiming, “Of course; do you think I can carry everything in my hands?” I’m sorry, maybe you have reusable bags in your pockets, or maybe you could use your pockets, OR MAYBE YOUR HANDS BECAUSE YOU ONLY BOUGHT TWO ITEMS.
- Missing album artwork on iTunes.

Wow it's been a while since anyone posted recipes.

Made some cranberry orange muffins. Like the combination of sweetness (but not too sweet) with the tart berries.
With actual cold weather here and even talk of the "s" word for our area early tomorrow morning, I made a pot of split pea soup.

Looking at recipes I saw one for plum pudding. Contains currants and raisins, but, er, no plums.
Calls for among other things, a pound of suet. Think I'll pass!

Think I'll try making the oat cake (recipe above in this page).

Let me know how the oat cake goes! I haven't made it since I posted the recipe.

Btw, if you're a frequent soup-maker, you should invest in an Instant Pot. I recently got one, and nowadays I just throw ingredients into the IP, press cook, and the next time i wander into the kitchen there's hot food waiting for me! I didn't already have a slow cooker, and now it functions as a slower cooker/pressure cooker/rice cooker all in one. Also, pasta cooked in an IP seems to come out "fluffier;" it's weird (but delicious).

Last night, Bubs and I made massive sandwiches with:
herbed garlic loaves
avocado
grilled eggplant
fried eggs
alfafa sprouts
avocado hummus
"tofurkey"
red onions
tomatoes
& lettuce

oh, and we threw some turmeric, garlic, amongst other seasonings, and grilled that baby on a George Foreman grill. Good god I ate a lot last night.

been feeling nauseous all day. good way to spend my last week of freedom (before starting a new job).

lately, it's this whole album:

I've had "The Only Living Boy in New York" stuck in my head all morning.

No song wins when compared to "Bridge." If you vote for the other song, Art's beautiful voice will come to haunt you in the night.

[All Things Must Pass.]

I heard "MSL" far too often when it was a #1 single but it fits very well on the extraordinary All Things Must Pass.

See, unlike with most other songs that get played on the radio too much (like the Eagles), I haven't grown tired of "MSL." Perhaps that's because I have only recently discovered the Beatles' solo stuff, which I'm oddly fond of given that I only slightly less recently started appreciating the Beatles. I've listened to All Things Must Pass a few times at least now, but C&TP maybe once.

"MSL" is a lovely song with lots of layers and pretty guitar, which is likely to win me over. I vote for the wall of sound.

here, have some tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-y-lS0YqF0

https://genius.com/Fleet-foxes-cassius-lyrics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LTCdt4tk8k

I love that weird yelling at the end.

Hi, Mari. I see this was a bonus track. Sounds good! So Mr Byrne was into crazy stuff even then. I must give the entire album a listen (I've only ever heard the awesome "Psycho Killer")...

Do you like other Talking Heads stuff? I've listened to '77 a few times, but More Songs About Buildings and Food definitely gets the most plays out of me.

I have one of those fancy vacuum-sealed water bottles that keep your drink cold all day long, and it is treating me well.

Stay Cool