Call me Melonhead

Ok, I am not sure why I started calling myself Melonhead on Internet boards, but keeping the same username across several boards has become a little easier to track. In some cases the name had aready been taken, so some other version of "melon" was used instead. Except here and I don't know why I didn't keep the theme here, but there you go.

I wonder sometimes if folks have alternate personalities for different types of boards they are on. For example one username/avitar for all their fan boards, another for all the craft boards, and perhaps a third and fourth for other hobbies, interests or concerns.

On some boards it looks like user names are mostly related to the subject of the board, like variations on the word "pea" for the twopeasinabucket boards, or variations on that rock star's names on his various fan boards.

At some point does it get way too much to keep up with? What is the average number of boards a person is registered on and of those how many are just places you just lurk in anyway? Just thinking out loud, I guess.

Later this week I'll talk about biscotti Saturday. Or tortilla Sunday. Yes, I made a mess.

Home made pizza

It's good but not fast. Some folks in my house had trouble waiting for it, if you know what I mean. But it was the best homemade pizza I've ever done. Try this crust recipe and you'll see:

King Arthur Flour pizza recipe.

Really, these instructions on how to manage willful dough are for real. Most pizza dough instructions act as though your dough will be cooperative. It is a LIE. Unless it's not a yeast dough, that is.

Two 12" pizzas were gobbled up almost completely by 4 adults. Then we had homemade apple pie. (Thank you Sam W.) Bliss. Sorry, no pictures, we ate it too fast.

The things you get stuck in your head....

Well, I have gotten onto the anti-HFCS bandwagon. Yes, high fructose corn syrup is an evil plot to make corporate food companies and their shareholders wealthy at the expense of the health of regular folks who, yours truly included, really love their sweets.

But avoiding HFCS is tricky but not impossible. Thank you Publix for stocking many natural foods like organic ketchup that don't contain this evil stuff. Plus, I have been making my own foods that I used to just purchase. Lucky for me I like to cook!

Now, that said, do you know how hard it is to find certain things without HFCS? My two latest quests are sweet pickle relish and guava jelly. I know they are out there, I haven't done an internet search yet, but I did buy a KitchenAid stand mixer and a grinder attachment. The mixer is awesome at making bread dough. And I used the grinder to grind up the only brand of bread and butter pickles without HFCS to make a sweet pickle relish substitute. Thank you Bubbies, by the way. And thank you, KitchenAid. Now, back to work. (Ham salad sandwich for lunch today, thankyouverrrymuch.

The reign of stupid is over. Praise Be!

That is all.

Treading water

I guess this is a mini-vent. My daughter and her husband moved in with me in November and I am kind of hanging on until they leave sometime next fall.

How can 2 grown people be so oblivious to filth? My house has white tile, and how can you walk past the cat's spit-up 3 days and not pick it up? I don't much care for cats anyway and this one uses her claws (not maliciously, she's just super nervous). Both the cat and its owners are treading thin, thin ice around here. They don't contribute to the household and currently they are not even keeping up with themselves.

I cave and clean the kitchen on a regular basis because I can't stand it, but I am getting mighty tired of picking up their slack.

AGGGGRRRRR!

OK, vent over.

My concert experience

So, I went to a concert by myself last night. I wanted to see One Republic and John Mayer, and I couldn't get anyone interested in going with me. Unless I bought at least 2 more tickets, LOL.

It was outdoors, at the Cruzan Amphitheater in West Palm Beach and it didn't really rain, although it spit once or twice as though it wanted to. Other than the occasional gust of wind or landing jet plane (we were under the landing route) nature was pretty quiet.

The crowd was definitely there for John Mayer, I hate to say it but when One Republic started playing a lot of people were still milling around. He tried the usual things to engage us by having us clap along, etc. One guy in front of me said halfway thru the set, "That's actually a good band". Like he was surprised.

The cello player got a special introduction as the "world's sexiest cello player" which they supposedly found on Craig's list. I for one was thrilled they had a live cello player and didn't try to fake it with an organ like I've seen unusual instruments done in concerts past. (Totally off topic, but my personal pet peeve is when the original recording has a prominent instrument like an accordion, and on tour they substitute keyboards. FOO!)

The audience warmed up to them when they played "Stop and Stare" which gets decent airplay on the local "eighties, nineties and today" station. Ryan was wonderful, so full of energy he danced his shoe off and across the stage. High notes? Oh boy.

He filmed the audience. (!) David Cook does that at all his concert stops too. Is that the newest thing?

My favorite cover of the night was One Republic's cover of "For What It's Worth". Bless his heart, Ryan said the song was 34 years old, I'm thinking more like 42, LOL.

There was a lot of dissonance during the performance that I thought was feedback. I know acoustics can be better at an outdoor venue; I've been to 2 live outdoor broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion where the sound was crystal clear and radio-ready. But some of this noise went on to become a song after the banter, so maybe they wanted it like that?

They played about 45 minutes, but I could have listened longer. The crowd was not so attentive.

OK, here's where I admit I'm probably an old foggy, but whatever happened to respect for the performer? I sat in the next-to-last row of actual seats before the lawn people and I could see a lot of folks kept getting up and walking around, taking pictures of each other, even during John Mayer, which toned it down a little but not all. Is it because it's an outdoor venue? The food vendors must encourage that since a lot of these people got up for food and beer multiple times. On my row especially, it seemed.

I was pretty far back and the only screens were behind me for the lawn people. Yeah, I should have brought binoculars. But in my defense I didn't want to carry a bunch of stuff that might get wet if it rained. We are still getting some of the effects of Gustav feeder bands. So I didn't take my camera either. I couldn't see their faces. Also I couldn't understand some the banter, although I don't always catch it all on TV either. The girl to my right was quite a screamer. At least for the first hour before she got bored. The boys on my left (late teens or early 20's) were incredibly quiet, and mostly were messing with a camera, or their iPhones.

I knew we were in for a spectacular light show when One Republic was done and they started setting up for John Mayer. A swaged white backdrop descended, many lights were assembled and men climbed to astounding heights on little rope ladders and did stuff. Since I was alone I had time to watch all that. I wasn't disappointed either. John wore all white and the colored lights were mostly behind him, leaving him in front of a sea of changing colored smoke. OOOOOOHHHHHHH.

Here's a little sample.

I was not surprised it was a rock concert as opposed to the sound on his recordings, since I had seen John Mayer in concert on one of my local obscure cable channels before. As it was on the TV concert, this one was heavy into the blues. Man that boy can play guitar! The band was on fire, too.

I don't know if it is common for live performances to be more musically driven, but I have seen other "live" shows on TV and live that were much more rock or jazz or blues and less of their wonderful vocals or typical recording style (Juanes, John Prine, Al Jarreau come to mind).

He said that this was the last stop on the tour and kind of talked about the families and real lives of all the band and background people.

For his encore John came back out shirtless and did Panama. I didn't recognize it but it was great. I originally thought he sang it with Ryan, but now that more YouTubes are up I see that it is a guy from his own band instead. That's what I get for sitting so far back. Then John sang a couple more songs. At the end all the band members of both bands stood on stage and did group bows, hugs, took pictures of each other, and some other fun stuff. Awww.

This was, as to be expected, a younger-than-me crowd. I saw maybe 8 or 9 people who could have been as old as me. Yes, I was looking for that, since I'm self-conscious. Most of them were with younger people. Oh well.

I loved it and would do it again anytime I can't find someone of like mind to go with me. You know, like when David Cook does his solo tour! Rock on!

Summer in the mountains

Well, 4 days anyway. I went up to spend a few days with my family in NC. As always, it is cool, damp and beautiful there.


The first surprise I had was that the grass was so high in the yard that I couldn't find my way to park in the dark. I was afraid of driving into one of the many ditches or drop-offs. Even with 4-wheel drive in the Jeep, I didn't want to deal with it. Barbara came outside and waved me into the front yard.

It was a few days of little activity, with quite a few trips into Franklin or Highlands. The theme might be "sloths sitting around reading" or "Kathleen's new toy". I helped her bid and win an iPod Touch, which I had loaded with several hours of music and a few pictures. This particular iPod comes with wireless Internet connectivity, so each time we went into town Kathleen had the pod out looking for unlocked networks to join. I have one now, too. Side note: how the hell do people blog from these things? Typing on them is a real pita.

You can see all my pictures here.