Part 2 of that 1997ish Domicile Survey that’s going around

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DVD THAT YOU OWN?
I was just marveling to Baker B about how DVDs seem like SO much trouble now! Take them out of the case, (after finding them to begin with, of course), putting them in the player, waiting for it to load up, finding what you want on it, actually using the TV instead of my iPad…. vs the ease of hitting play and streaming. How weird is that?? If I can’t stream something, it just doesn’t usually seem worth the bother. BUT we have recently been watching DVD’s, because every winter, to cheer ourselves up, we watch The Mighty Boosh and Luxury Comedy, along with all kinds of related stuff (like the IT Crowd episodes with Richmond, and Nathan Barley, and OMG Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place which is one of the funniest things EVER…) ANYHOW, we’ve just finished up this annual festival of bizareness – and this really is relevant since we have the Boosh and Luxury Comedy on DVD.

I’ve just spent ages trying to come up with something that explains Luxury Comedy and makes sense. There is nothing.

I’m not even attempting Mighty Boosh, although it’s actually less bizarre than Luxury Comedy. Both of them are on YouTube. Go watch them now.

HOW ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE CD THAT YOU OWN?
Like DVDs, CDs now seem too much work – also, I can not keep a CD in the car because Baker B will carry it inside the house – after putting it into the completely wrong CD case despite my having two big CD folder things that ALSO won’t stay in the car – and I will never see it again. I have no idea why he does this – he is not by any stretch of the imagination a neat tidy person who doesn’t want stuff in the car. He’s messier than I am. It’s a mystery.

I have an iPod that I adore, which is now how I listen to music. It’s an ancient iPod – I think I’ve had it ten years – and it’s the Classic. Which holds an insane amount of music. I have nearly 3000 songs on it, plus some movies and TV shows (that I actually used to watch on that teeny screen) and I think it’s only half full. I don’t know what I’ll do if it ever dies, because they do not make them with anywhere near that kind of storage anymore.

But back to the actual question! My favorite CD, that I own, would have to be Rain Dogs, by Tom Waits. Here you go:

You’re welcome!

WHERE IS YOUR STEREO OR RADIO LOCATED IN YOUR HOME?

The stereo is in the living room, and we really need a new one. It’s very VERY old and amusingly I have never been able to figure out the CD player on it. There are three slots and even after all these years I still don’t know how the hell you get it to play the one you want. Well, I don’t get it to, I just plug in my iPod.

DO YOU HAVE A COFFEE MAKER?
OMG, WHAT KIND OF PERSON DOESN’T HAVE A COFFEE MAKER??!!?? Of course I have a coffee maker. It’s a very pretty blue one by Bella. Baker B also has a cheap espresso machine because he lives on lattes.

DO YOU HAVE AN AREA DESIGNATED FOR ALCOHOL?
Our whole house is designated for alcohol. I keep beer in the fridge, and Baker B keeps his wine in the fridge because he likes cold red wine. And if we have extra stock it goes in the “pantry”, which used to be a little linen closet but is now for food and wine and whatever.

HOW MANY TELEVISIONS DO YOU HAVE?
Just one. I think it’s four or five years old but I still think of it as being very modern because we had our previous one for years and years and years. We got that one really cheap when thin flat TVs were just coming in, and it must have weighed 300 pounds. When it finally started dying, we bought this one, which is of course a thin little flat one. It’s either 32 or 34 inch – I can never remember, but tiny compared to all the other TVs these days – and Baker B was on fire to buy a new bigger one at Christmas. Our house is so small we practically sit with our noses against the TV, so I don’t really think we need a huge one, but whenever he thinks about it again and they’re cheaper, we’ll probably end up with a new one.

DO YOU HAVE STAIRS?
One set, going down to the Scary Basement.

WHAT KIND OF STUFF DO YOU HAVE ON YOUR WALLS?
Nothing very interesting. Photos, a few paintings that Baker B did and one or two that I did back a million years ago. We need to update.

WHERE DO YOU KEEP YOUR TOOTHPASTE?
Well, in the bathroom, of course! I would say scoffingly, but we actually did go through a period of several weeks last summer when we couldn’t use our bathroom sink because the ancient faucet had come completely apart and water was pouring out underneath, so we had to put a new one in. Since we are nothing if not glacial in conducting home repairs, we were brushing our teeth in the kitchen for awhile, and that’s where we kept the toothpaste. Which is not as inconvenient as it sounds since the kitchen sink is literally about six steps from the bathroom sink, but seemed SO WRONG to me. Nasty and wrong.

DO YOU HAVE A DEN OR AN OFFICE?
Our spare room is kind of my “office”, although it’s mostly where I throw things on the bed and keep my clothes and jewelry supplies, and where I feed Eddie so I can shut the door and keep his pudgier sister from eating his food. Baker B has his own little room downstairs, which was a bedroom at some point too. So we do at least have our own space in our teeny house.

DO YOU LIVE CLOSE TO ANY STORES?
Not walking-distance close, but we’re near town so it’s only a few minutes to drive to any of them. Actually, the closest grocery store is only a mile so technically it’s well within walking distance, but you’d get run over trying to walk there down our narrow curvy road that has nowhere at all to get off the pavement and lots of speeding traffic.

DO YOU HAVE A WALK IN CLOSET AND IF NOT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE ONE?
No I don’t, and yes I’d love one, thanks!

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING HANGING FROM THE CEILING?
That’s a little creepy! No. Well, yes, a ceiling fan in the livingroom. That’s all, I think.

DOES YOUR KITCHEN HAVE A THEME?
….. Young Ones Chic???

No, no, it’s not THAT bad. Not really. It’s very very early 70s, and not in a good way. It is cleaner than that.

IS IT A PAIN TO DUST YOUR LIVING SPACE?
No more than dusting anything else is a pain. So, yes, it is.

WHAT’S UNDER YOUR BED?
Mysterious boxes that have been there for years, books, cassette tapes (YES, 1997 survey, cassette tapes!!! and I don’t know why), dust, shoes, socks, sometimes a cat or two.

DO YOU HAVE A GAME SYSTEM?
No.

HOW MANY TELEPHONES ARE IN YOUR HOME?
These days, just two – my iPhone and Baker B’s iPhone, which was my iPhone until I got my current one and he inherited my first one. We haven’t had a landline for YEARS.

DO YOU HAVE A FIREPLACE AND IF SO DO YOU USE IT OFTEN?
This is SO SAD – we DO have a fireplace, and we do not ever use it. When we moved in, it had one of those decorative glass door things that apparently had not-heat-safe glass in it, because we didn’t get to use it long before it shattered. Then we bought a woodstove insert from our neighbor, and we have never used it because we were never able to get it hooked up properly. At this point it would require some massive chimney cleaning and tree-trimming to use it, but it’s a huge shame because I love fireplaces.

WHAT KIND OF MICROWAVE DO YOU HAVE?
This is also sad, because I have no idea what kind it is and we just bought it last fall. There actually was very little choice at Lowes, which is where we went since we have very little in the way of shopping opportunities in this town. It does what we need it to, that’s the important thing. And it’s black, which I like as it doesn’t look dirty nearly as quickly as a not-black one.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FIGURINES OF ANGELS AROUND?
Kind of surprisingly, I actually do have one that was a gift years ago. It’s a very low-key angel.

DO YOU LIKE TO OPEN THE BLINDS OR CURTAINS OR KEEP THEM SHUT?
The only ones we shut are the blinds in our bedroom. Which is kind of odd since people can definitely see into our house at night, but I don’t care- I HATE having all the curtains and blinds drawn, and our house is WAY too dark and claustrophobic for that.

HOW MANY COMPUTERS ARE IN YOUR DWELLING SPACE?
Baker B’s desktop, my current iPad, my old old laptop that Baker B uses downstairs, the previous desktop that he also has downstairs, my iPad mini which I don’t use anymore but take on trips for Baker B, and a very VERY old teeny Dell… netbook! That’s what it was called! It’s 10” and kind of heavy but I got it really cheap years ago and took it on our first trip to England. So it’s like 9 years old. It probably won’t even turn on now. Oh, and I guess you’d count the two iPhones. So…eight?!?!? Clearly we need to do some computer purging.

WHAT COMPANY DO YOU USE FOR INTERNET ACCESS AND HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Charter, and it’s over $60 a month, just for internet, which seems high to me. But again, rural area, not much choice in internet providers.

Oh, that’s it! What a long survey. I’ll leave you with an illustration of the two cutest things in my house, on top of the boxes that Baker B is always bringing home from work so they sit around the livingroom forEVER. And I hate to move them, because, how could you?!?!