Icons: I've added two new icons to my collection--'Beer!' by angelus_1910 and 'Obnoxious and Disliked' by unmasked_icons. You can guess which is which.

I also want to make another animated icon--or at least make the frames for one and ask someone at icons to kindly animate it. Maybe I can put it together this evening. I'll see.

Food: Mark tried out our new garlic roaster this evening. The roaster is a little ceramic dish with a dome-shaped ceramic lid. You place garlic pieces in the dish, cover it with the lid to trap the head, and then bake in the oven for a certain amount of time. The garlic smells delicious and is quite tender.

I need want more green olives.

Art: Darn you, hbruton! Your art is so, so beautiful, you're almost enticing me to become a fan of furby--and I don't like furby! *wails, digs in wallet*

Morrigan painting. *swoons*

(I like ravens--and I really like BIG ravens, even if they are part wolf-critter. So gorgeous!)

I've been wondering if half the problems I'm having with my voice are more due to poor singing habits than to my persistent cough.

No, it hasn't gone away, despite ten gazillion different antibiotics. Argh!

If I sing quietly, from my throat, I get a lot of interference from the cough. if I sing with my full voice, I can function--sometimes. It still doesn't sound what I would call great, but at least I don't sound like I'm dying of consumption and shortness of breath.

Another problem is that I sing songs in the same key in which I hear them sung by men on recordings. Since I am a soprano, and I doubt the male singers are, this is not good.

Today, while waiting for the bus, I got into a Simon & Garfunkel mood and was singing a lot of their songs, in particular "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," "Patterns," "The Dangling Conversation," "Kathy's Song," and "The Sound of Silence."

I got to thinking that my rendition of "Sound of Silence" would probably bore Simon from American Idol to tears. I tend to sing it quietly, without a lot of punch to it.

But I thought this afternoon that punch is what it needs. Parts of "Sound of Silence" need to sound as if Joan Jett or Pat Benatar is singing them. Yet other parts, I think, need to sound more contemplative, as if a monk were singing them--not in chant, mind you, just contemplative, expecially the end.

So somehow, I have to combine 'monk who is raging against the machine' with 'calmer monk.' That should be an interesting vocal exercise.

And on a side note--I also remembered at least one verse of "Big, Bright Green Pleasure Machine." Whee!

Movie: We're seeing the Scurrilous Movie, aka The Da Vinci Code, tomorrow night. I suspect I will spend significant parts of it laughing my ass off, now that I've seen all of the History Channel documentaries which tell the real history behind the thing.

To Viv: viv, did you send back a reply for our JP, or did I miss it? It might have gone into my bulk mail folder, and if it did, I deleted it without ever seeing it. The first one came directly to my inbox, though, so I'm hopeful that you've been working on your paper, not feeling well, and getting ready for Eurovision, instead. Have a good time!