Things I love at the moment...

I may have to make this a weekly installment.  The last favorite things post I did was about ten days ago, so we'll call that good enough.



1)  The Array Mbira

It's an African instrument made with steel pieces tuned in octaves.  You 'pluck' it with your fingers and the box below helps it resonate.

I first heard of these from Imogen Heap's vblogs.  She obtained one and uses it in a lot of her music.  There's a song on a various artist cd called Glittering Cloud she did that is absolutely gorgeousful.

This video (2:20 she starts ACTUALLY playing the instrument and then 4:00, then 8:50 a bit.)

Here's the 'vid' of Glittering Cloud (it's really just a slide show, but the song is in there).

Some jazz musicians K and I went to see had one, too and I wanted to steal it from them.  And this guy makes pretties with his:

2) The Hang Drum

Another thing Imogen has.  It's like a steel drum met a flying saucer and they had a love child together. 

They're only just starting to get popular.  This, unfortunately, means they are about as expensive as the Array Mbira (in the 1-2000 range).  And Imogen was GIVEN hers.  She's got good friends.  :D

Here's a vid of someone playing it.  He's really quite good.

3) Imogen Heap

I love her.  I've seen her three times in concert (does a radio show count as a concert? She did play four songs...what's that called, anyways...?  The one made in Boulder...damnit! ETOWN!!!)

I wish I had her talents.  Or at least her instruments and setup.  All I really want is an Line6 DL4 and I would go berserk!

4) 30 Rock

When I had Netflix I watched the first five episodes and liked it well enough.  Then I canceled my sub and forgot about it.  But I saw it on TV the other night and remembered how funny it is.  So I got seasons 1-4 from the library and have almost finished watching them.  (I picked them up Saturday morning).  It makes me so happy. (Don Geiss is in carbonite.  :DDD)

5)  Blalock's Indie Rock Playlists

Recently discovered, instant love.  I like the new moosiks to listen to.  They make me happy. 


6)  That one salad, you know, the best one

Yeah.  That one.  It's spring greens, bleu (gorganzola works, too), pecans (candied or no) and some sort of fruit.  Something like cranberries, dried.  Cherries, pears, apples, raspberries...oh I'm getting hungry...  PS.  I had this salad for dinner.  And I think I need another one.  Whole foods has pre made ones, which is nice because I don't have to figure out a dressing.  The one I have in my fridge works pretty well, though...

7)  My sewing machine

It's been such a trooper.  Those punching bags I'm making require it to muscle through four layers of the thickest canvas duck Pac Fabrics has.  Poor baby...tomorrow I'm going to sew some roses to make it feel better.

8)  Wasting time writing lists of my favorite things when I should be knitting tinies instead.

Other things the come to mind but don't necessarily need an entire number to themselves.

• Biz - for getting almost any stain out of almost anything
• yarn - for lending itself so well to my creativity (see the bracelet thing)
• rocks - I organized all the rocks Roo brought me from Italy on my mantel.  They're pretty
• milk
• organic cinnamon toast crunch cereal (is all gone... *pout*)
• box cutters
• grapefruit
• cookies
• teh intarwebs

9)  FOXTROT!!!

It deserves its own number.  I got five of the books from the library and have been going crazy reading them.  :D

Okay it's knitting time.  Mostly done with one, will finish the next while watching more 30 Rock.