artquest

Arrrrgggh. Two of my all time favorites. I'm going with Number 1, though, because that was such a fabulous night.

This is my first really tough choice, too. #1 is Flat Clay, who is still hanging around the house making me smile. #2 is gorgeous grown-up Clay. Decisions, decisions. And will yesterday's Twitter Clay show up in this tourney?

I wanted to drop by here and thank Scarlett for all the beautiful Clack, and then I saw this. I have to say that Scarlett's original seat was totally exposed. She wouldn't have lasted a minute, so I was glad to give her my seat, about 10 rows further down. On the other hand, the view from my new seat was awesome! A great shot of the stage, no one in front of me, Clay two stories high on the jumbotron up to my left (takes a moment, then takes another moment. Wait till Permaswooned uploads her jumbotron photos), no crowds, no bother. I think I got the better part of the deal. So hugs to you, Scarlett, for the Clack, and a wave to Couchie, whom I missed completely.

We took the sky way walks to the light rail and then the light rail to the Mall. Worked perfectly. DD noticed that most of the bars and restaurants in downtown Minneapolis didn't really have street level entrances. Most people seem to use the sky walk pathways and passages between buildings, one story up from the street. I guess the first storm deposits 6 feet of snow, so it makes sense to move everything up. They were kinda like the tunnels in Houston that went from building to building all through the downtown. And for the same reason - awful weather - though in Houston it was the heat/humidity.

DD has been in Minneapolis for extended stays twice since she's been touring. She loves it, too, though she didn't say anything about the good looking men. She said they have the best audiences, plus everyone is so nice to them that the weather isn't a problem. Speaking of which, Spotlightlover and I were there for last year's CITH tour. We decided to scope out the Mall of America, which required traveling some miles from downtown. Since we're both Californians with no real experience with winter temps, we called the guy at the front desk for advice. "Oh, it's balmy," he said. "Define balmy," I said, suspiciously. "Where are you from?" he replied. "California." "Well, in that case, it's 28 degrees and freezing."

Considering all that fruit you guys have picked up, this might be the place to start: Qingwen, xi shou jian zai nar? May I ask where the bathroom is?

Back in the day when porn was kinda illegal and hard to come by, one of the local cinemas in Kentucky decided to run "The Devil in Miss Jones" on a cold and snowy January midnight. The line went around the block. So far, in fact, that they had to open up the theater next door and run the reels over as each was completed. Hubby suggested that my education as a psychologist wouldn't be complete until I'd seen the flick, so off we went. About a third of the way through the movie, during a particularly squirmy bit, I swear I overheard the following conversion in the row behind us: Man 1: I can't believe they're showing this on the screen! Man 2: I agree. This is outrageous. Man 1: Look at what she's doing! Man 2: Is that even possible Man 1: I'm disgusted. Let's leave. Man 2: Not yet!!!

My Chinese speaking friend says that we're sorta OK with the characters, but that the word for love is a really strong one, implying intense and unswerving devotion, so maybe not appropriate for Clay's rear end. She suggests we use 我爱上克雷的屁股 instead, which means "I fell in love with Clay's butt." She loves the CD cover. They translated "Measure of a Man" as "True Love Measure". It's smutty either way.

EEEEEEEE!!! You got 4 out of 4, chickie. The difference is that Babelfish gave you traditional Chinese characters, like they use in Hong Kong or Taiwan. Scarlett and I are learning Mandarin as spoken in Mainland China. They use simplified characters. We can do "WORD" if we can get a precise definition of what it means in board-speak.

Apologies! Scarlett said: 我穿上不很好讲Klingon。 我是美国人。 Which means she doesn't speak Klingon very well, that she is an American. That last part, 美国, means America. We may see some of this at the Olympics. Also look for big signs everywhere that say 中国, which means China, literally the Middle Kingdom. 中国人 means a Chinese person, just like 美国人 means an American person. I replied: 我也是一个美国人。我学习中文. 我不学习Klingon. Which means I am also an American and that I'm studying the Chinese language, not Klingon. And I think we'll take our Chinese discussion to e-mail before we get a little note or whatever the admins do here when we're waaaaayyyy off topic.

Wo shuo de bu hao Klingon. Wo shi Meiguo ren. (and I hope you've been practicing too Reading is something else, though -- 我穿上不很好讲Klingon。 我是美国人。 ) HA! I can soooo understand that!!! Yay!!1!! (Hi-fives my teacher, Ms. Xiaoyang. This is going in this week's diary.) Wo ye shi Mei Guo ren. Wo xue xi Zhong Wen, bu Klingon. 我也是一个美国人。我学习中文. 我不学习Klingon.

That's eerie - I was looking up the Battle of Agincourt last night. Don't remember why. Anyway, here's what a typical site had to say: Not a bad day's work, Harry.

I love Scarificial Love. Love it! I like the concept - a new one for me. The idea that someone is hanging around waiting for real love to strike is intriguing, though I'm not crazy about the term "sacrificial love" for that concept. But what I love most is that it's a beautiful waltz. Pandora.com, who is usually really good about this stuff, doesn't get the song at all. Here's what they say: And their suggestions for similar tunes didn't do it for me. I guess it's one of a kind. I'm sure you guys have seen this on Youtube, but if not, it's worth a look: Sacrificial Love

I used to get flack about Clay from my new office mate, a very trendy, tattooed, contemporary art history person. Not directly, mind you, but she would make comments to others that I happened to overhear. Then I showed her one of the 11 ways I know how to kill someone with my bare hands. (Seriously. She asked.) Now I get LOTS of respect.

It's been really fun to read the whole thread this evening, after the dust has settled. 1. He is out of the country and knows nothing about the "turmoil" Kim's comments created. 2. He is sitting in Raleigh eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch totally oblivious to the turmoil Kim's comments created. OR 3. He's typing and retyping his blog so as not to piss anyone off... ...or he's sitting there saying to himself, 'It's just a tour, women!!' (ala Asheville/Biltmore banter) Ding ding ding. We have a winnah! You are a wise woman. I think I'll just follow you around from now on. :F_05BL17blowkiss: For what it's worth, I'm not a big fan of the evil publicist notion. Public press release? Check. Kim's My Space announcement? I just saw it there. That means that Kim stepped over the line. He knows it and she knows it. That's just kinda sad. Hugs to aikim and clazorback.

I agree with almost all of this. I can really hear how beautiful his voice is on MOAM in concert (not the CD) or MDYK (in my opinion, the best combination of his voice and song ever), but then I remember the a cappella Invisible: During a radio interview, he denied having perfect pitch but bet the DJs that he could sing Invisible in the same key as the recording. He sang a few lines, they played the recording, and the key was the same. What was awesome was not that he could do this, which is actually pretty easy, but how beautiful his voice was on the song when all you could hear was the vox. Even tossing off Invisible to win a bet for TBAF, he couldn't help but be wonderful. Sniff.

Karen Eh's going to Azerbaijan? But, but, who will take those sublime pictures? Have a fabulous time, chickie. We'll be looking for you on one of those trips back to see Clay.

In honor of the thread title and Karen Eh?'s amazing photo: The Earl of Aikenberry

I agree completely with your sentiment, although my list of annoying habits might differ a little from yours. Couchie is wise. I did, momentarily, make someone's good fan list during the same week as someone else's bad fan list. I'm thankful to the folks who got me off the bad fan list (And a nasty piece of work that list was, too.), but I appreciated the surreal humor, all the same.

Ah, Boone Farm, a bottle of which served as the centerpiece for a lovely May afternoon in the infield at the Kentucky Derby. Good times, good times. Couchie looked great at Fifth Grader, sitting on the far side of the set from me and waving her sign like crazy. Also good times.

I DID see it. Thanks. And the pictures are sooooo cute. I'll be showing them to Mr. Artquest just as soon as I can stop looking at that zipper pic. Which may take awhile. Quite awhile. Ahem.

Can I have A Thousand Days? I love this song with the passion of a thousand spinning mirror balls!

Respect noted and returned. My problem here, of course, is that I like almost everyone! Beyond affection, the statement huskerfalcon made this morning is not a claim of insider information; it's just good sense. Somewhere along the line, people with insider information HAVE posted what was, at least for a time, accurate stuff. For my own part, I've given up trying to figure out which anonymous poster is presenting accurate information and which isn't. It's just not possible to tell. Now to make this really interesting, Clay himself can be an unreliable informant. He's a real person, so he is sometimes inconsistent, his mouth sometimes kicks into gear before his brain gets working, and sometimes things change. He tells us what he can when he can (I love the new Meet & Greet formats), but even he isn't always right. Plus as you've noted, the reports from the M&Gs also get passed through cognitive filters. It's become a family tradition in the Artquest household to take a tape recorder to important doctor visits because memory can be misleading. I remember Mr. Artquest's dad and mom arguing over what the doctor had said and then having to play the tape to hear it accurately. One of them had it completely wrong! Clay is just so fascinating to watch. Considering the amazing level of scrutiny, I think he almost never makes a wrong step. Plus he's so cute! Ah, well, I'm about to slide into total fangirlyness when I need to get to work. I have a longish post somewhere in me on how people try to figure out what's going on under conditions of uncertainty, but that'll have to wait for another day. And I can see that while I was composing this endless post, we've moved on to audio picks of each of the songs. Can I play? I'd love to do one, as long as it's not Everything I Have.

I believe huskerfalcon pretty much every time I read her stuff. Plus I like her too, so that helps. :F_05BL17blowkiss: Here I think she's completely reasonable: some people know some stuff, though I'll bet that the people who know the most don't post. It seems unreasonable to believe that no post on any board anywhere has ever been made by someone who had insider information. That's just silly. The trick is trying to figure out what's real and what's not. Makes my brain hurt. Did I read the Couch Tomato is coming to L.A. for Fifth Grader? Yay! *Artquest does happy Snoopy dance.* See you in line, chickie.

BWAH!