Saturday, October 6, 2012

I F@#king LOVE Fall!!

Goddamn but I do love Fall. 




I adore pumpkins and mums and red leaves and yellow leaves and orange leaves and cornstalks and funny shaped gourds and wee mini pumpkins and straw bales and Thanksgiving and Halloween and The Boy's Birthday.

October is always such a glorious month...and this year I think it's even more glorious-er than ever. 


A little bit up the road from our new house is a huge hill that overlooks just about everything you'd ever want to look at...I can see the beautiful Lake Couchiching in its entirety AND I can see the seemingly endless beautiful rolling hills of Severn Township. 

From the atop that hill, I've contemplated sunsets, air shows, fireworks, approaching storm clouds, full moons and stars...and now I can add fall foliage to the list. 

The autumn colours this year are beyond anything I can remember and yesterday afternoon, as I surveyed the magnificent hilltop view, I was moved to tears by the beauty of the miles and miles of red, orange and yellow leaves. 

Now, to clarify, I didn't actually cry...even I'm not that much of a baby...I was just so completely overwhelmed that I was left breathless and my eyes were brimming with unshed tears. That has never happened to me before...and I have been fortunate enough to behold some pretty awesome things. 


Anyhow, it was pretty cool and it has inspired me to compile....


“A Comprehensive List of Everything I Fucking LOVE About Fall
by: squirrel_e_girl



  •  Everything.







The End.

p.s. Happy Thanksgiving to all my Beloved Canadian Readers and Happy Glorious Fall to everyone else.

xo seg

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

"_ _uck Yeah"


Dear Beloved Readers,

 I apologize whole-heartedly for failing to keep you in "the New Country know" this Saturday past. I realize many of you have come to depend on your weekly Country Music fix and have most probably succumbed to symptoms of withdrawal...and for that I am gravely sorry.

My bad.

I was very much under the weather and only now have I gathered here today 2 get through this thing called life.

For those of you who have managed to hang in there, I am about to ease your pain and your suspense!!

Here is your....

"squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week"

This week's pick, while it's not one of my absolute favourite songs, The Girl likes it and I guess it is pretty good...and I get to post a second song that I ALWAYS sing whenever this particular song plays on the radio...but more of that later...is:

"Truck Yeah"by Tim McGraw

It's kind of a silly song and a silly video but if you like trucks and/or enjoy ogling the very handsome and surprisingly super fit, Mr. McGraw, then it'll be worth your while to have a peek.

So...have at 'er:





Now it's time for the song that I'm even more excited to have an excuse to post. It is a wonderfully rude and offensive classic from the wonderfully rude and offensive movie "Team America- World Police"...

~A Quick Hilarious Aside-Way back, when this movie first came out on DVD, my friend rented it for her son's 6th birthday party...her excuse "How was I supposed to know it's not for kids?? It has puppets in it, right??!!".  This Quick Hilarious Aside will actually only be hilarious for those of you who have, in fact, watched the movie in question. For those of you who have NOT watched ...it is not even a little tiny bit appropriate for a bunch of 6 year old kids...not one teeny tiny bit. It's extraordinarily NOT for kids. But it IS pretty fucking hilarious.~

I kinda think that Tim McGraw HAD to have been thinking of this song when he wrote his song. It's TOTALLY almost similar...sorta like the whole Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" copycatting Madonna's "Express Yourself"debacle...

Anyway..

Here's "America- Fuck Yeah":









Hee Hee.


It's Not Easy Being (a) Green (Machine)

You wanna hear a sad story??

Well, it's not actually a sad story in the true sense of the word "sad"...it's just a story about the sad/ridiculous state of the inner workings of my mind.

OK...

So,

Once upon a time(about 30 minutes ago), I walked into the door after bringing The Boy to his hearing test.

 (Don't worry, it's mostly good. His range is a sort of low normal... He'll have his ears rechecked in two years to see if it's getting worse. This means that HE SHOULD PROBABLY NOT LISTEN TO HIS HEADPHONES AT FULL TILT ANYMORE!!!...DID YOU HEAR THAT, YOUNG MAN??!!)

So, I walked into the door and noticed for the several dozenth time that the holding tank in the Little Green Machine carpet cleaner that's sitting just inside the living room really needs to be emptied out and cleaned. What with having two dogs, the occasional visiting dog, a cat and two kids who leave lunch bags full of half-eaten food and half-full cups o' hot chocolate sitting around, well within grabbing range of a food-obsessed Terrier...our sandy coloured carpet takes a bit of a beating. Our little handy-dandy carpet-cleaner comes in handy-dandy often enough that it's always in ready position in order to deal with the inevitable barfs, pees, scattered lunches and splattered hot chocolates.

This is what it looks like:



I am quite embarrassed to admit that we don't always empty it after it has been called into action, sucking up the various repugnant substances and sometimes this mucky mixture just sits around .... quietly fermenting...  thus multiplying its repugnance.

The only reason I'm admitting this gross housekeeping faux pas is that this sad story can't be told properly and to its full effect without that very admission of atrociousness.

So, I walked in and noticed the gross Little Green Machine and thought to myself,

"Self, that is really f&*king gross. Someone should really do something about that."

And then proceeded to sit my sorry arse down on the stool in front of the computer in order to write my Country Tune of the Week post which I neglected to do this Saturday night because I was sick as a bastard...but don't worry, I am feeling not so sick anymore and I will write it as soon as I am done this story.

Not long after I sat my sorry arse down, leaving the Little Green Machine to further putrefy, I looked out the window and noticed that our tenant had pulled into the driveway, and I said to myself,

"Oh shit, Self. Ralph's home and he's bringing the garbage and recycle bins in from the end of the driveway which he does every week and has told My Guy that he kinda considers it his contribution so we should just leave it for him to do, which I do but I always feel weirdly guilty about not doing it especially if I am home before he is on Garbage Day. Damn it. I'm gonna make myself scarce, Self, so that as he walks past the window he doesn't see me sitting on my sorry arse while he is bringing in the garbage stuff. Also, I don't really feel like risking an exchange of pleasantries through the window. QUICK!! HIDE!!"

So, I slip away from the kitchen window and scurry into the living room and spy the hellishly half-full Little Green Machine of Disgustingness and think to myself,

"Hey Self, this is a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone...Avoid making any sort of contact with our very nice tenant AND clean up the revolting concoction that has been steeping away in that carpet cleaner thingy"

I cheerfully leaned down to remove the holding tank of disgustingness and made my way down the hall to the bathroom in order to finally dump its contents down the toilet.

 I'm not entirely sure of exactly what happened next but I ended up juggling the tank as it flew out of my one hand, spewing liquid horror into the air and onto the wall and onto the floor. I, somehow, managed to catch it mid-air with my other hand and then, in an effort to stop any further spillage, I turned it upside down....

...dumping, through the big hole on the TOP of the tank, the rest of the noxious stew on the wall and on the floor.

Needless to say, many swears were uttered.

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!

Now, the floor in the hallway is ceramic tile so clean-up was not as terrifyingly ironic as it would've been if it had've landed on the carpet. The problem is that we live in a log home and, consequently, our walls are log and, of course, log is wood.... unfinished and therefore porous, absorbant, easily stained ....wood.

Goddamn.

I've mopped up... and disinfected and deodorized ... the floor and sprayed the walls, in an even and hopefully not readily discernable pattern, with NOK-OUT which supposedly eliminates any and all 'environmental contaminants".

Here's hopin'.

In conclusion, the truly sad part about this story is this:

Had I:

 1) emptied and cleaned the stupid machine after each use like normal non-disgusting people do

OR...

 Failing that...

 B) managed to manage my freakishly anti-social tendencies and bizarrely bizarre, not to mention, unnecessary and misplaced feelings of guilt

...this horrifying experience needn't have ever taken place.

The moral of this story, as you can plainly see, is...

Don't be gross.

The End.


p.s. The other moral is to actually say "Hi!' to people you know....and to NOT scurry away and hide in your living room.










Saturday, September 22, 2012

"Play it Again, Zac ...er... Sam."


I love my Girl... and because I love her... and because I love Zac Brown Band... I'm gonna risk coming dangerously close to hitting this blog's Z.B.B.S.P. (Zac Brown Band Saturation Point).

To explain...here's this week's,

"squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week"

Last week, I wrote about our house coming alive with the sound of music ... to be surrounded by such big beautiful sound has brought us buckets and buckets of joy...

Yep.

Joy.

Pure unadulterated joy.

I've been living a non-stop dance party kinda life.

The dogs are concerned.

Although Wee Willow is quite partial to "Moves Like Jagger" and will join me out on the dancefloor that used to be our living room when that song comes on.

I'm falling in love with music all over again. I simply adore hearing all the intricate musical details of each song and have a renewed appreciation of the role the bass guitar plays in so many songs.

Very cool.

Anyhow, this afternoon, after my iTunes shuffle graciously landed on "Quiet Your Mind", The Girl shouted from the kitchen, "Mum!! Let's do Quiet Your Mind this week!!"

To which I replied, "Yeah but I already did that one."

To which she replied, "hmph"

Later on, she went out for the night and, because we still hadn't decided, I sent her a text asking her what song she wanted to do.

To which she replied, "Just do a repeat!"

Well awright...

Her demand is my command.

This week's song is a repeat... so if you actually listened to it the last time I posted it, you are in for a treat ...AGAIN.

And if you didn't listen to it the last time I posted it ...*sniff* ...I am giving you an opportunity to revel in the f*$king wickedness that is Zac Brown Band ....and to make up for crushing my feelings by not listening to it the first time.

This is such a big song and I love the way it builds to a big beautiful crescendo and I love love LOVE songs in 3/4 time.


As I have mentioned, Zac Brown Band isn't really country...they're a little bit o'everything.

Cross Genre-ers, if you will.

Something for everyone, really.

Even The Boy has been spotted singing along to ZBB...

...and that's saying somethin'.

Strictly speaking, this song isn't really country but it is awfully kickass.


So put your headphones on, crank it up, close your eyes and QUIET YOUR MIND, man!!!



You're welcome.


Sunday, September 16, 2012

iHeart Apples ... and Gord Bamford


Good Morning, Beloved Readers!!

It is a gorgeous late summer/early fall Sunday morning. Sunny, cool and crisp ...it feels exactly like a delicious apple tastes.

~a delicious apple as in 'a tasty apple' not as in 'a Delicious Apple' ...I'm not a huge fan of Delicious Apples...don't care much for the texture. But delicious apples I'm all over!! yum yum!! I highly recommend delicious apples of the Honey Crisp variety. My sis-in-law introduced me to them last fall and my life has never been the same. Dee-lish~

Speaking of Apples .... I didn't get around to posting our "squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week" as I promised last night. My Guy and I thought it would be fun to create the little "outtake" video of my foolishness that I added to last night's post and it took a whole bunch of time figuring out how to stick 'em all together as one... and through a whole bunch of trial and error, we managed to get them off my iPhone and onto our iMac and then learn how to use iMovie and I nearly lost my iPatience and then my iMind but my iGuy is an iWiz-aard and it iWORKED!!! <--- you can see our iWizardry in last night's post.

Although, I've decided I might have to leave the vlogging stuff to the pros (I'm talkin' bout YOU, Hannah Hart and Jenna Marbles) and just keep to writing ... When writing, it does not matter if I have fuzzy hair, a red nose or black eyes and if I occasionally blink like a fuzzy-haired, red-nosed, black-eyed owl...Hoo cares??

Alright...

Down to business...

"squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week"

I'm on my own ...again...with this week's pick. I think I might have to fire my collaborator ...she's slacking. A couple of broken toes and crippling pain only buys you one "Get Out of Collaboration Free" card.

Anyway, since Limpy isn't around to help me pick, I'm going to choose a song that she probably has not even a little bit of interest in...

Just. Because. I. Can.

or

Just. Because. iCan.

My choice is: "Leaning on a Lonesome Song" by: fellow Canadian, Gord Bamford

I love this song. From the very first time I heard it, it struck a chord deep inside my heart. It's probably as close to the kind of country music that I grew up listening to as there is out there and it just grabs me...especially the chorus.  When I was looking for the video, I found a live version he played on a radio station out west. In the interview, he explained that he wrote if soon after his brother-in-law committed suicide...it was his way of coping with his grief.

Anyhow, here it is:



(edit-- I just watched this again...after writing this post ...and noticed all the Apple product placement in this video...Apparently, either Gord, or his director, likes Apples too...it's like this video was iMADE specifically for my post :)  What a coinkidink...Thanks, Gord)

And, you feel like having a wee little sniffle...and you have a son...then watch this one, called "Little Guy":




And, if you feel like having a wee little sniffle...and you have a daughter...then watch this one, called "My Daughter's Father":



And, if you feel like watching a bunch of sweet young thangs frolicking on the beach in Tofino...then watch this one,  called "Blame it on that Red Dress":



And, I think this song is cute and funny... "Drinking Buddy":



I didn't, till just now, realize how many Gord Bamford songs I like. I feel a little iTune splurge comin' on...I'll be supporting some fine Canadian talent.

Yeehaw!!






Saturday, September 15, 2012

"The Houuuussssse Is Alive...With the Sound of Muuuusic"



So, this has been a very big day here in squirrel_e_girl world.

I am extraordinarily proud to announce (admit) that I, for the very first time ever in my whole entire life ...burned a CD.

Yep.

I did.

(cue slow clap)

Please...

Everyone...



Please...

Please...

Everyone...

Everyone. Please.

Please take your seat.

Thank you.

You are far too kind.

Actually, the burning of said CD was the acme of a series of rather incredible events.

First...I figured out how to transfer my entire iTunes Library from my iPad to our new iMac.

Yep.

I did. (please...please remain seated)

And then...
I watched some YouTube "how-to" videos and learned me how-to create a little something called a Playlist.

And then...

I created a Playlist.

Yep.

I did.

And then...
I watched some YouTube "how-to" videos and learned me how-to burn a CD.

AND THEN...as previously proclaimed...

I burned a CD.

Oh yeah.

The CD that was burned was The Civil Wars album called Barton Hollow.

In an earlier post, I encouraged you all to rush out and purchase this amazing album in its entirety...If you haven't already done it, do it now. Don't worry, I'll wait...

The best thing is that the CD actually worked and actually played music :D

And I was extremely excited to listen to it on my car's most excellent stereo.

You see, for the past few months I have lived a mildly muted musical existence. Our half-decent stereo decided to stop playing CDs and we've made do with a little ghetto blaster with only so-so sound.

Also...

We don't have any sort of iProduct docking station.

Nor is my 2001 Volvo XC70 equipped with the technology that would make it possible for me to listen to the jukebox that is my iPad whilst driving. It is a most excellent stereo and sounds really awesome...it's just kinda old.

And the little Apple earbuds really hurt my ears with their hard plastic shells of ouchiness.

So, that means I've only been able to enjoy the spoils of my iTunes addiction by way of my iPad and its wee little speaker.

Yep.

It's kinda sucky.

It does not produce a sound that is likely to break wine glasses or whip up gale force winds that would wreak havoc on my home...and my hair.







But...

Today...

That all changed.

My Guy, in a ballsy "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul" manoeuvre, dismantled our home theatre system (we don't watch a ton of TV so it's no big shmoo) and reclaimed the receiver and swapped the DVD player with a new BluRay player and swiped the kickass killer million dollar speakers and moved everything up out of the Basement (aka Cave of the Teenaged) and into our more civilized, more main floored living room.

AND...

He bought me a little cable thingy that connects my iPad and its cherished iTunes Library to that receiver and its kickass killer speakers...

And...

VOI-fuckin-LA!!!

I am, as we speak, being bathed in the honey golden sound of Dallas F*%king Green's voice in majestic full surround sound.

sigh

Oh...and now I'm being followed by a MoonShadow.

sigh

Thanks, Yusuf.

And, now I being blessed with a little bit o' Zac Brown Band...

Which reminds me...


Yep.

Gotta love my lovely "Freeze-Frame Face".

UGH....but I guess there is no room for vanity in vlogging.

 Well, maybe a little bit...

ugh

Didya hear the high quality tunes in the background?? ... some CSNY. Not my very first choice for background music but it took me awhile to get over myself and to stop making faces and swearing at my phone and, as a result, my first choice was looooong past.

I am so wonderfully happy that we now have the means through which to listen to music LOUD and with beautiful sound!!

YAY!!!

I'm not sure how wonderfully happy the dogs are....

Or how deeply thrilled our tenant is ...

hmmmm...

We may soon have a vacant apartment...

Does anyone know anyone looking for a beautiful log home apartment to live in??

They must love Zac Brown Band and Dallas F&*king Green and Beck and The Civil Wars...and Style Council ... and Brad Paisley ...and Great Big Sea ...and Blue Rodeo ...and Luke Bryan ...and Pearl Jam ...and ...???

;)


******************

p.s. I realize that it is Saturday night and Saturday night is "squirrel_e_girl & The Girl's Country Tune of the Week" night...but I got carried away with this post and it's far too long already so I'll see you in a whole new post with our whole new Country Tune Pick.

*******************


...and Jack Johnson...and Sloan ....and Xavier Rudd ....and Foo Fighters ...and Willie Nelson...

***************
HeeHee...

Look what us Computer Wizards did...

My first "Outtake Reel"

HA!!!





















Saturday, September 8, 2012

My Drunk Concert

Alternate Title: Zac Brown Band Does it Up Right

Alternate Alternate Title: The Karen Show

Alternate Alternate Alternate Title: squirrel_e_girl's (minus The Girl) Country Tune of the Week

Ok...So last night My Guy and I went to what was, hands down, the best concert I've ever been to... ever.

EVER.

Really Really.

Zac Brown and his super talented bandmates sure put on a spectacular show.

The music was great. The harmonies were brilliant. The light show was very bright and flashy.

Incredible.

The crowd was HUGE!!!

I've never, in my whole life, seen so many cowboy hats in one place. It was quite something.

Line ups were immense...especially for the women's washroom...That's why I accompanied My Guy into the boys' washroom...a little trick I picked up in Nam. Dudes don't care. They all seem to get a huge kick out of it...and I get to pee without waiting 3 1/2 years in line.

I'm crazy like that.

I had so much fun ... and several RockStar[+Vodka]s... and at 8pm the night after...I'm still feeling the after-effects of all that fun ... and the several RockStar[+Vodka]s... and I can't bring myself to be all writer-like so I'm going to be lazy and rely on some of the stellar video footage I shot last night.

You are in for a real treat.

Yep.

The second song they played last night is one of my favourites (I've already featured it in a previous posts).

Here's "Whiskey's Gone"....well, most of it anyway...captured live via iPhone by Yours Truly. I kinda filmed it sideways...so maybe don't actually watch it...it might make you a little dizzy ...just give it a listen.



It was AWESOME!!!

Here are a few snippets of Post-Concert Commentary by a very inebriated me. You may notice I had  some issues with the cornea-sizzling brightness of the flash. I apologize for the swears...and the foolishness.

There are many many more "snippets" but I'll spare you most of them...






Yeah.

So.

I'll actually write something good soon.

Zac Brown Band is kickass.

Fact.

Rock Star.....out.