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the infamous hallway faq
revised
11.30.06
about us
about the site
pastimes and obsessions hobbies
cats
life, work, and play
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um...who are you guys?
Brittney & Salvatore Hall, owners and proprietors of The
Hallway. And now you know the lame and obvious source of this site's name.
Eh, sometimes you have to go with the obvious.
As for the rest...well, most of it is classified, but we can tell you that
the people in the picture...aren't us. (But maybe if you hover and
click...?)
Also:
Sal: chef, beer/coffee/wine connoisseur, mimic
extraordinaire
He's passionate about food to the point of snobbishness
(which he proclaims with unabashed glee), tells the punch lines of jokes
in his sleep, and has total recall of almost 30 years of commercials.
Brittney: writer, webmistress, worthless trivia badass
I do an obscene amount of reading (but not, it is noted,
obscene reading), have a habit of combining random numbers into multiples of
fives and tens, and can do a decent impression of
Homestar Runner.
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+ how do you find time for everything?
Dunno. Doesn't seem like
we find time for even half the stuff we need to do or even want to do. We
do fit in a lot, though.
'Course, we don't have kids and we tend
to keep some pretty whacked out hours. And our house will never have the
Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Heck, we're lucky to get the clothes
folded and put away before they get dirty and wind up in the laundry
hamper again. We rarely have groceries in the house because we
just can't find the time to make a list and go shopping. We don't wash the
cars as often as we should and there's a whole room full of boxes that
need to be sorted through and organized.
But we do find time for
the movies we want to see. And spur-of-the-moment Saturday adventures in
Portland. And entire lazy weekends of reading. We try to make a trip to
the beach from time to time and we snuggle with the cats when we
can. And somewhere in there we make a little progress on our
home
improvement projects.
So we do pretty much the
same as anyone else: focus on the big stuff, don't sweat the small stuff.
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+ what does "zuzuspetals" mean?
Zuzuspetals is a nickname we've been using since we moved
to Portland. It's taken from the movie It's a
Wonderful Life, from the part when Jimmy Stewart is on the bridge
asking for his old life back. It starts to snow, Burt the cop finds him,
and he's realizing that his wish may have come true. He digs in his pocket
for "Zuzu's petals", the petals from the flower his daughter Zuzu got as a
prize at school. When he finds them, it's confirmation that he is back and
that it is indeed a wonderful life.
Our move to Oregon was a long awaited step for us, a dream
come true. In many ways, it was the start of our own wonderful life.
Yeah, it's sappy and sentimental and maudlin. We don't
care.
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+ now
that sal's a chef, do you guys ever eat mac & cheese anymore?
Yes. But Sal would never admit it.
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so what was your idea behind
this site design?
Well, we wanted to move away from our original movie theme
and go with something completely different. But we really liked our purple
and yellow color scheme, so that's stayed the same.
A small part of us belongs to a different time -- the
forties and fifties, mainly -- and that's the inspiration behind our site
design. Kind of an amalgamation of funky and retro, simple and cool.
Of course, it's entirely possible that we're not nearly as
hip as we think we are.
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do
you guys really write the newsletter together?
Yes and no. Before Sal started school, it was much more collaborative. During school,
however, he didn't have enough time to do all his regular stuff let alone help
write the newsletter. He did do the monthly recipe, though, and during
that time, wrote a column called "Chef Salvatore's Fun Food Facts".
Since then, he hasn't taken up the pen
as much as he did before school. He still contributes the recipe and helps
find quotes, proofreads and checks facts, as well
as doing the less glamorous stuff like folding, sealing, stamping, labeling, and
sending the paper copies of the newsletter. He's also learning how to do work on
the website so he can add his recipes and keep his own
website updated. (Actually, he's learning the website stuff because he really has no
choice and anyway, he's tired of having me nag him all the time about it.)
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what's
the big deal about portland?
Other than it's
our own personal utopia? Oh, you mean why did we want to move here, right?
Well, we love
being from Wyoming. We love the mountains and the snow and the open spaces
under a bright blue sky. We love the dark thunderstorms that roll in from
the west and the call of meadowlarks on sunny spring mornings. We love the
crisp cold of a winter freeze and the smell of fresh-cut fields in the
evening.
But we don't
belong there and we never did. It's a horrible thing, to live someplace
you know you don't fit. And there was just something about the Pacific
Northwest, something about Oregon and Portland in particular, that drew us
here. It's been pulling us for a long time. It's hard to explain if you've
never felt it, but for both of us, it was a feeling in the back of our
heads that we might find a sense of place here. For me it was probably
longer -- I remember feeling this way about Portland since I was younger --
but it's been a dream we've shared almost as long as we've been together.
It's one thing
to dream about living someplace, though, another thing entirely to do it
and it could've easily failed to
meet our high expectations. Thankfully, Portland was everything we'd hoped
it would be and more.
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+ what happens if I join the
mailing list?
Join the mailing list and you get email notifications
whenever the site's updated and as soon as the latest newsletter is posted
each month.
Your information is kept private and never given out to
anyone or used for anything other than email notifications regarding the
site.
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+
did you really see the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the
ring
thirteen times?
Damn right we did. For all you unbelievers, we even have
proof. And about a month
after we posted the proof, we saw it again. So it's now fourteen.
We only saw The Two Towers and
The Return of the King six times each
-- renovating a house will tend to suck up all your free time -- but we still
think that's pretty impressive. See the tickets
here.
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+ so what's this obsession with
firefly?
Obsession? Who
said it was an obsession?
Oh wait, that
was us.
Yeah, we're
obsessed. It only lasted 12 episodes but that should tell you something.
NO, not that we're insane. It should tell you that there's something
really special about a show that can turn two otherwise normal people into
TV-crack pimping idiots.
It's the
stories, the setting, but it's mostly the characters. We fell for them,
and fell hard. We're not saying we cried when the show was cancelled or
that we were part of the campaign to get it back on the air (although we did
and we were), but neither of us has ever been this in love with a
television anything, nor do we expect to be again. It was a one-time deal,
rare and wonderful and heartbreaking.
Man, we miss this show.
UPDATE! Due to the immense efforts of its fans (we who call
ourselves the Browncoats), Firefly was released on DVD on December 9th, 2003, completely unheard-of for a
show that lasted all of 12 episodes. It includes the three unaired
episodes, commentary from the entire cast, Joss Whedon, and Tim Minear,
AND shiny extras (including the 10 minute gag reel). As if that weren't
enough, we even got a feature-length movie
out of it! Rejoice, fellow Browncoats!
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+ have you ever been published
anywhere other than here?
Actually, yes. Carolina over at
Shebytches.com asked me to write a
Guest Bytch for her site in March 2004 on any old thing I wanted.
And I blogged on home improvement stuff for The Oregonian at
Bungalow, Sweet
Bungalow. I also have a political blog
and a personal online journal, and have published several things at
various group blogs across the internet.
I enjoy the kind of writing I do for the site, newsletter,
and online generally, but my passion is actually writing fiction. However, as you read up
above, I'm not sure if I'll ever try to have my
fiction published.
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+
are your cats really that bad?
Yes. They're petty criminals who lead lives of
leisure at our expense. These
two will appear on a Most Wanted List somewhere some day. Mark my words.
The criminal lineup:
Hobbes, aka "Hobbis, Hobbses, Pobbis" -- 8 years old,
orange/white stripe, sociopathic personality. Likes ice cubes,
pencils, and wine corks. Dislikes peace and quiet. Favorite
attack maneuver: Vulcan Death Grip.
Smaug, aka "Maugis, Maggot, Miss Maggot" -- 8 years old,
black/grey stripe, antisocial personality. Likes Sal and licking Sal.
Dislikes Brittney. Favorite attack maneuver: hit and run.
The crimes:
Destruction of property, petty larceny, grand theft, criminal
mischief, assault, battery, unauthorized possession of hallucinogenic drugs,
stalking, harassment.
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+ where did
you get the name "smaug" and how the hall do you pronounce it?
Smaug [smOWg] got her
name because she bears a remarkable resemblance, in both appearance and
personality, to a bad-tempered dragon. The fur along her spine doesn't
quite lay flat so it resembles a line of spikes, when she's in a foul mood
(which is often), she turns her ears down and sideways so that they resemble
horns, and she does this weirdo fire-breathing thing (minus the fire) at the
slightest irritation.
So we named her after
that infamous bad-tempered dragon from The Hobbit (are you
surprised?) that terrorized Middle-Earth inhabitants for the pure entertainment
of it. The parallels are uncanny, really.
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+ is your site really free?
Yes. We don't use pop-ups or ads -- everything is entirely
funded out of our own little pockets. We don't solicit donations or
require any kind of payment to use the site, download newsletters, or be
added to the mailing list. We're participating in a test advertising
program for houseblogging on the This Old (Hall)
House section of the site, but that's it.
So why do we do this? Simple: vanity.
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+ do you have a list of the
sites you've created?
Well, since you asked.... These are all the sites
I've created and currently administer.
They're pretty much all for work, of course. The only
things not listed here are our blogs and livejournals. But then, we
technically don't run those, I guess, even though they're ours.
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+ What's the deal with you and the fake
Christmas tree?
They used to show a Christmas film in elementary school during
the holidays about a Christmas tree told from the tree’s point of view. The
story follows the tree as a family comes to its forest to choose it and take it
home with them, how it enjoys being decorated and admired by the family and
their guests, and the excitement as the children pull the gifts from its
branches on Christmas morning. Later, the tree is drug out behind the house,
bewildered and forlorn that the family no longer wants it.
It’s left there to dry out and die and get chopped up for
firewood.
Yes, let's let that sink in for a moment, shall we? THE IMAGE OF
A PERFECTLY HEALTHY TREE BEING CUT DOWN IN ITS PRIME SO THAT PEOPLE COULD PUT IT
IN THEIR FANCY SCHMANCY VICTORIAN PARLOR AND DECORATE IT LIKE A CURRIER AND IVES
PAINTING WHILE THE TREE NARRATES THIS WHOLE DEBACLE SO THAT WE ANTHROPOMORPHIZE
IT AND WHEN ITS BIG DAY IS OVER IT IS HAULED BEHIND THE PROVERBIAL WOODSHED SO
THAT IT CAN TELL US HOW SAD AND LONELY IT FEELS AND WE KNOW WHAT'S AHEAD FOR OUR
DEAR FRIEND THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE HORROR MY GOD THE HORROR WHO THINKS THIS
IS IN ANY WAY APPROPRIATE HOLIDAY FARE FOR ANYONE LET ALONE YOUNG CHILDREN
OMGWTFBBQ????
Whoever made this film was a sadistic, child-hating, holiday-hating,
happiness-hating, mean-spirited, nutflavored freak and ought to’ve been beaten
with a string of multi-colored Christmas lights. I was six(!) the first
time I was forced to watch this child-scarring film in the school gymnasium and
was so upset they had to call my mother. I went to four different elementary
schools growing up in that town and every single one of them showed this
horrible movie every year. EVERY YEAR, YOU GUYS!
I was so scarred by it that after the third or fourth year of
getting calls that her daughter was in hysterics in the nurse's office, my
mother got wise to the whole emotional trauma thing and the first day of school
after Thanksgiving vacation would send me to class with a note that if they
insisted on showing that psychotic film to young children this year, to please
excuse her sensitive daughter from the activity and let her occupy herself with
a book in the library until the movie was over.
And now you know why we always have a fake Christmas tree.
I have, as yet, to meet anyone who saw this movie; not even Sal has seen it,
even though he grew up in the same town (albeit only went to one elementary
school the whole time). I've tried working my google-fu to find out the title,
or possible an online-support group for its victims, but alas, nothing. Perhaps
someone on teh internets will know the answer....
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