Self Care – Adorable White Kitten Plays With Yarn (Youtube Video)

(So, chigau, in the comments, alerted me to something I honestly should have already known. So I’ll be avoiding “cute animal” compilations from now on, sticking either to livestreams or non-compilation videos where the animals are actually playing. The original video here was a compilation of mischievous cats. I did watch it a couple days ago, but apparently wasn’t playing close enough attention. So, I’ve changed the video…)

What do you do and/or enjoy for self care? Let me know in the comments!

Self Care

Starting Friday, January 20, at 7am Eastern Standard Time, I’ll be posting self-care posts every 4 hours from 7am EST to 11pm EST until Monday the 23rd, at which point, starting Tuesday the 24th, I’ll be putting up one self-care post a day at 12pm EST for the foreseeable future.

What will they consist of?

Simple…

-Animated gifs or live videos of cute animals (that will be the bulk of it over the weekend)

-Science documentaries on YouTube

-Episodes of podcasts I listen to that either aren’t political at all or only barely brush politics (The Read will show up somewhat often, as will The Black Guy Who Tips; This Week in Blackness will be an exception that shows up, but only when the show goes off the rails or otherwise is largely humorous; you’ll also hear from Joseph Scrimshaw and what his guests are obsessed with, the Geeks Without God will make a weekly appearance, Katharine Heller and Sally Tamarkin will show up with the Struggle Bus every week, Dr. Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain will expound upon astronomy once a week on Astronomy Cast, as will Ralph, Paul, and Jen on Awesome Astronomy, and you’ll hear from NASACast; I’ll also be sharing Night Vale, Oh No Ross and Carrie, and Inquiring Minds episodes that aren’t political; Katharine Heller will come up again on Tell the Bartender, and Ed Levine will show up interviewing the leaders of food; I’ll also bring SinCast, from the makers of CinemaSins, and you’ll hear from three different Doctor Who podcasts).

-(Coming off of Serious Eats) Food posts. Things like text recipes (most will not be my own as I don’t have the time to come up with recipes that often; though I will rarely post my own recipe or my own twist on a recipe), Buzzfeed’s “Is It Worth It?” series, video recipes (a good bunch from Serious Eats and How to Cake It), and so on… (I will including warnings for vegans if the food posts involve meat, and will also attempt to quickly come up with ways to do a vegan version of the recipe if that’s possible)

-Animal livestreams

-Great Guitar Solos and Astronomy Picture of the Week will continue (only now with the added Self Care title, tag, and category)

-Other stuff that makes me happy

-Suggestions from you: if you have ways you do self-care that I can post about, tell me in the comments on this or any of the posts. I’ll ask at the end of each post.

Every post will simply be called “Self Care” and a title-appropriate short description of what’s in the post.

These posts will not be places for socio-political or religious debates, discussions about the not incoming administration, or anything of that nature. And they most certainly won’t be the place for trolls. The comments will be heavily moderated (assuming anyone comments).

These posts will be safe spaces for healing, jokes, laughter, and virtual hugs. They will be spaces to share more links, animated gifs, images, and whatever else makes you happy (and your shares may be featured in a future self-care post with a credit and link to you).

We all need self-care. I know I need it, and I know that there are so many more who need it way more than I do. So I hope my sharing these things is helpful in some way for all of you.

Great Guitar Solos – Pink Floyd Plays Shine You Crazy Diamond

I hope you have 25 minutes and 33 seconds to spare, because that’s how long this one is. And it has multiple guitar solos, and they are all amazing. But of course they are; it’s David Gilmour.

This one is audio only, so you don’t have to watch anything.

The first guitar solo starts at 2:09 and ends at 3:34. The second guitar solo starts at 5:11 and ends at 6:27. The third guitar solo starts at 7:34 and ends at 8:38. There some amazing little licks during the verses. Then some amazing saxophone solos. The fourth (slide) guitar solo starts at 15:43 and ends at 17:53. After the verses, there’s a really cool synthesizer solo that ends the song.

So turn off the lights, get yourself into some comfortable clothing and/or pajamas, light up a joint, pour a glass of your favorite alcohol to drink neat or on the rocks, take out your favorite picture of Syd Barrett, press play…

… and enjoy!

(It’s funny, but I could fill this series up with nothing but David Gilmour and Jimmy Page… so next week, how’s about some Jimi Hendrix?)

 

Great Guitar Solos – Lenny Kravitz Plays “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” (feat. John Paul Jones on Bass!)

Sadly, I do not know the name of the lead guitarist on this way (if anyone can tell me the names of his lead guitarist and his drummer, I’d really appreciate it), but I actually really like this solo. It’s short and sweet, but it just… it works for the song. It’s a perfect fit.

This is live at just about the only awards show I ever enjoyed, the 1993 MTV Music Video Awards (and yes… I may have been a fresh 6 years old at the time [turning 6 only four months earlier], but I did actually watch bits of it live… I have subsequently seen the entire thing in later years). And you know I love the fact that John Paul Jones, of Led Zeppelin fame, joined them on the bass. This whole thing is awesome…

The solo starts at 2:41 and ends at 3:12. Enjoy!

Quick warning about my next post: it’s gonna be Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”… it’s a very long one.

Hazel Scott; a Piano Prodigy (4 Videos Embedded in Post)

(It’s almost 8:00am. I finally managed to get tired enough around 4:45am to go to bed, only to wake up a couple hours later coughing due to an itchy throat caused by post-nasal drip. I’ve been like this for at least three weeks now… 🙁 )

There are 4 videos embedded here; 1 from Twitter and 3 from YouTube. Beware in case they autoplay.

So… I realize I missed this past Monday’s Great Guitar Solo, and I haven’t brought the Astronomy Picture of the Week series back. Hopefully I’ll be fixing that this coming Monday and Wednesday, respectively. In the meantime, I have another music post for y’all, this time highlighting the supremely talented Hazel Scott.

How I stumbled on her is actually really funny. I’m a huge fan of this podcast called The Read. So naturally, I follow the hosts, Kid Fury and Crissle, on Twitter. After the debacle that was Mariah Carey’s NYE performance, I was very very curious to see what they had to say. Sadly, they didn’t say anything. However, I did find a pretty funny tweet that Kid Fury had retweeted…

[Read more…]

Great Guitar Solos – Cream Play Crossroads Live

Often, when you love an artist, you eventually end up discovering that they really aren’t a great person. This has held true with Eric Clapton. It kinda sucks that this amazing guitarist who, like many other amazing guitarists, made his money playing the music of black people (the Blues), was also pretty damn racist (and considering the fact that he’s never actually apologized for those remarks, and actually reiterated his support for Enoch Powell over 30 years later, probably still is). Sadly, I can’t hold up one of his greatest guitar solos without at least mentioning his racism.

With that in mind, his guitar solos on their cover of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads is pretty damn incredible. Proof that “Slowhand” was more a misnomer than a nickname; he had speed.

(This video, BTW, was made by taking the track from Cream’s album “Wheels of Fire” and matching it with video from another show of them playing this same song.)

The first guitar solo starts at 1:28 and ends at 2:11. The second guitar solo starts at 2:32 and ends at 3:36.

Enjoy!