So I've really been avoiding LJ. I've just been kind of overwhelmed with real-life stuff and I don't have the time nor the inclination to go through the millions of pages of communities I've been following. So, sorry if I miss something =/ If it's important, let me know, I promise I'm actually around. For example, today I've been making sure facebook doesn't explode my inbox.

Anyway, so I'm going to have an exciting weekend. I wore wonderfully bright things today (and my Indy QC shirt) and then went to El Toro with mom and dad and Laura. Laura convinced me to get a pina colada but it was not really to my interest. So, so far things aren't looking good for my drinking self. Champagne is a no, mudslides are a no, pina coladas are a no. Wine is meh but I'd rather drink milk and mountain dew and sparkling grape juice to be honest... =/ Yeah, like I said, I'm just not that interested.

ANYWAY but Stebs is coming down from Indiana tomorrow & we are going to dinner with the roomies & Laura & Sav, then doing something (undetermined yet) on Saturday and then PARTY to which I invited all of facebook because I was lazy (which is actually kind of awkward) and then Sunday is dinner with the whole fam fam. Delicious summer spaghetti and cooorrrrnnnn and brownies, yum.

So classes are looking okay though my grad-level tech elective might get cancelled because there are only five of us and the teacher didn't even show up to the first day. Art history I'm kind of pissed at because we're doing prehistory but all European, Mediterranean, and Mesopotamian. =/ Why no Asian, southern African, or American?! Or Australian... really, anything.

Anyway. Might be back more this weekend or hopefully next week. woo

Also actually wanted to go to the gym today. Which is a good sign for wanting to stay fit :D Now the problem is finding easy but filling lunches... Salads are good but not filling enough, considering yesterday I thought I wanted to puke.

You know what is exciting, though? Besides my friends Matt and Riley who are both trumpets at Troopers, I also found out that Fred Morris shares our birthday! And always my dad, as well. We are so cool beans like that :D

So the ghetto is amazingly quiet; there are only a few parties going on, with the requisite loud music, but nothing really rowdy. I guess that's because there is no study day before exams tomorrow, but still.

There was no one around the house tonight so I went over to Kim and Melissa's and they and Jon and Jerome and I all went to get ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. Now, I usually always get chocolate chip cookie dough when I go there (because it's the only place that it's any good) but I saw they had a brownie sundae and the brownie looked particularly delicious so I had to get it. I DID NOT KNOW THERE WERE SO MANY CHOICES IN GETTING A BROWNIE SUNDAE. Caramel or hot fudge?! What flavor of ice cream?! Whipped cream?! Nutes, sprinkles, oreos?! I mean really? I just went with straight up vanilla ice cream because I wasn't sure what else would go well and not over-choclify me (like New York Super Fudge Chunk would have), and then hot fudge, whipped cream, and nuts. Yum. Oh, and plus, Ben & Jerry's FINALLY takes Flyer Express. Yay!

So after that we came back and Kim and Jerome went to bed because Kim had to work the desk at midnight, so Melissa and Jon (and Moeller, who we met up with in the hallway) walked back over to my house with me just to sit on the swing, and I grabbed my uke and proceeded to further maul the tips of my fingers. =) But it was fun just sitting and singing, though the guys didn't really sing at all...

But I did get some practice in on the new song I learned today, Only the Good Die Young, and also The Lumberjack Song. Also managed to find Edelweiss and The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) and then played the rest of the songs I know, Can't Help Falling in Love With You, Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain, Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, F.U.N. (yes that's from Spongebob), I'm a Believer, and Margaritaville (which I forgot to play). BUT Only the Good Die Young is a ton fo fun to play, and I'm getting decent at guessing the right chords that need to be switched in the tabs I find, though most of the songs in my range use C/F/G/Am chords. Curiously enough.

ANYWAY so my fingers are raw and I had fun singing and then we had this random creeper come up to us and stare at us and then say he likes to go around on Friday nights telling kids about Jesus, and we said we were good and realized we probably just should have kept on the Bale Out remix we had playing earlier.

Aaaaaand tomorrow is Write Two Papers Day and then Go To A Disney-Themed Costume Party. It's a "go as your favorite Disney character" theme, but I do not trust a hundred drunken people with my fedora. SO, I'm going as a pirate because I haven't dressed up as one in a while (!!!!) and I really want to. Need to run to Foy's to get an appropriate hat, might go thrifting for some more scarves or whatnot if I have the time.

Oh man, so, I watched The Fall last night, and it's such a confusing movie sometimes. I've watched it twice and I'm still not completely sure what's going on all the time. Like... hurr, the Italian bombsmith gets shot in the foot because he's the leg stunt guy. But I couldn't figure out what was going on with Darwin and Wallace, especially toward the end when Darwin says he'll tell everyone that Wallace was the real genius, but then I looked at the imdb for the movie and it says that it was referencing the fact that a guy named Wallace actually came up with the theory of evolution, and Darwin sort of preached it with him, but then because of a screw-up/misunderstanding in the printing/book credits, Darwin gets all the credit for Origin of the Species.

SO. Absolutely splendid movie, particularly if you like what the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been, or Baraka, or Lee Pace. Any of those things are a great reason to watch this movie.


...My fingers are really sore from playing. D:

OH MY GOD the weather today has been so nice. I was lamenting the fact that I was burning up around lunch, because I LOVE wearing jeans and my kneehighs, but then it was perfectly warm-and-cool this evening so it's okay.

Oh my god, and Judy retired today I will miss her so much. :C

Also, watching the fall, I had kind of a HURRRRR moment: they call them "movies" (as in moving pictures) like they called them talkies (as in movies with sound). It's like a whole new mind-bending mental concept/point-of-reference that I need to wrap my head around now. Er... I suppose "context" was the word I was looking for.

OH, OH, OHMYGOD, so that rickshaw kid, apparently he runs a rickshaw business in Chicago so he brought it from home and runs a little business here, too. We saw him drive these four guys down our street, looked like a good workout.

Fuck this class, seriously. It's conceptually one of the easiest classes I've ever had to take here (hurr geometry hurr) yet it takes SO MUCH FUCKING TIME out of my life that guess what. Today I had a three problem test, fucked up the first one but had no time to fix it, didn't even finish the second problem and didn't get to the third one! This is complete bullshit that I am going to fail or get a C in the class just because we only have three tests. I made a stupid error on the first one that cost me a ton of points (my brain read the word wrong--there's really no helping that in matters of prevention) and now I didn't even fucking finish.

I don't know what to do, this is bullshit. I emailed my prof but who knows what he'll do, if anything.

The material is not hard! It's not like I'm struggling to understand it or anything. It's just a lot of hand-work.


FUCK MY LIFE, fucking seriously. This week sucks balls.

No school today. This is... amazing. I still have a lot to work on, but I least get a tiny break. It especially helps because last night I was freaking out because I couldn't get to any computer to finish my homework; I'd spent four hours in the lab and came home for dinner. Candice's computer died too (just last night), and Sarah was sick and already asleep and Brittany was using hers. So. I kind of had a meltdown about homework last night. (Just because it was one more thing on the pile, you know?)

Yeah, so. I've been in the lab for about three hours now, but that's okay, I'm getting things done and it's quiet. It's a bit odd in the sense that I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the building currently... But I like it that way.

It's very bright outside with all the snow, and I definitely was kind of blinded when I walked inside. BUT this is the kind of snow to have, I'm telling you. A foot or so of it, very kickable, and still pretty warm outside, enough that it would be very nice to be outside. Now if only I didn't have so much to do, correct? Yes.

BUT, a bunch of linkspam that has piled up a bit with my computer woes. (Ah, poo. I am no longer the only one in here. Someone else just walked in.)

The immortal jellyfish... Quite cool, really. I'm not very afraid of them being our next overlords because I'm pretty sure it's going to be some octopodian thing and I will ~freak the fuck out~

An adorable Barney and Robin background. I am very sad I don't have my laptop right now because it would most definitely be the desktop...

The Henchman's Helper? I'm not exactly sure what's going on here but I am intrigued.

"Milky Way over Mauna Kea" which should be more accurately titled "Milky Way over Haleakala". Haleakala is the volcano in the foreground. (Still active, though it hasn't erupted in such a long time they thought it was dead. Or is dormant the right word? I think dormant means it's active but not currently erupting...) Anyway, you can see Mauna Kea (part of the Big Island) poking through in the backgroud. It's cool to think I've been at this view, roughly... Damn I miss Hawaii. Holy crap though, look at all that light pollution... That makes me so sad, really.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I would say that this would be the only way I'd read the book, but I suspect that as much as I dislike it, it's noewhere near as bad as Wuthering Heights. So. I will only say that you just have to be aware of where zombies are coming at you from... (Now there's a lovely ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition, as dislegal as it is.)

Green grafitti. Very cool stuff.

Business currently hiring; I would work for Google...

Well, you have to face it, regardless: the Mayans were very skilled with figuring out their calendar. And regardless of the outcome, I will be having a party. By the way, anyone know when the LHC is supposed to come back on?

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. I want to go there. Mechanics such as these mystify me... Sorry for that unintentional alliteration. (Worse than punning, methinks...)

Ah, so, back to work for me... And back to that tiki blog I found. Good stuff, that.


By the way, is anyone else excited for the Pink Panther movie, or am I the only one? (Tee-eye-double-guh-er.)

Hahaaaaaa fuck. So my MW am class changed classrooms, and NO ONE TOLD ME. So I showed up early (about five minutes, which is normal for me) and no one was there. I waited. No one continued to show up. Great. I walked out in the hall and made sure I was in the right classroom... Yes. Waited a few more minutes, texted Geoff (who's in most of my classes this semester), and walked home. The only reason I'm upset is that we were supposed to have a quiz today, AND the professor actually takes attendance, and I don't want me not getting an email to count against me twice in my grades. Fucking hell.

Other than that hour of stress, I'm in pretty much the same mood I was last night. Bah.

Interestingly, I feel more guilt about taking only 15 credits this semester than I do a lot of other things. I mean, initially, I feel a lot of guilt about things, but I have the feeling this will hang around as one of those "regret" type things... Like after I graduate, I will find out there was some awesome few-credit course I should have taken but never heard about. =/ Oh well. I am too busy with corps stuff (I want to be superbamfready for the next camp--my legs are killing me), and I want to have some free time to finish moving, do my room, work on Phi Rho stuff, actually hang out with people, and maybe do stuff for the musical, who knows. OH, and finally meet with the art department and declare an art history minor. *whew*

Anyway, I'm too tired to talk about camp right now. All worn out from camp. Amazingly, my back does not really hurt, but my legs are frigging KILLING me.

So I took Frontier, and apparently the $15 flight insurance my dad got also got me "plus" status, so I could have boarded earlier, and I got a snack (usually $3) and a drink (...minus I'm not old enough, haha, but $2-$5) and the TV/movie access ($5.99). On the way there it was six in the frigging morning, and I didn't know ahead of time I got the movie, so I wasn't paying attention and the stewardess gave it to the guy sitting on the aisle. I was kind of mad later because I could have seen Eagle Eye essentially (to me) for free. And I guess because I was asleep, I didn't get a snack, either... I would have liked to have something to munch during my five-hour weight at the fucking Denver Whirl of Doom (aka, the Denver International Airport; trying to get into or out of it is like climbing into and out of a hole. I hate the design of it, god damn is it confusing). ANYWAY, on the way home I got to see The Mummy III: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and I new going in it was going to be cheesy. One, Rachel Weisz dropped out as Evie; too bad, because I think she lended the character much more credibility than whoever is playing her now. Two, that link that showed up on cleolinda's journal ("if I knew there were going to be Yeti Field Goals, I would have seen this movie"). Yeah, by the previews (not that I was paying much attention to The Mummy III earlier this summer because Weisz dropped out--usually meaning the script will suck) I really had no idea there were going to be yetis, and a dragon, and a frog... bull... lizard... thing. (Seriously, what was that?) Okay, ALSO? WHO THE HELL MAKES A MOVIE SET IN CHINA AND THEN PUTS EUROPEAN DRAGONS IN IT. FUCK YOU. Would have been SO much more creepy if they'd used asian-styled dragons, FORTHELOVEOFGOD.

HOWEVER! Going into it knowing it was cheesy (I mean, think of how kinda-lame Mummy II was; valley of the what-what, right?), kind of along the lines of "this is somewhat along the lines of Temple of Doom sequelitis", it was extremely enjoyable. I liked it. Could have gone with a bit less interaction with the yetis, and obviously a different dragon, and the plot had some holes (a lot of misexplanations/lack of explanations/badly places exposition lines) a mile wide, but if you just sit back, laugh, and have fun with it, it was good. But maybe you have to be one of those people who grows into Temple of Doom first, I don't know. (I never really thought ToD was that bad anyhow, until I sat back and watched people bitch about it. But that was probably because I knew I still had one left in the series when I first watched it, and also when you're younger you don't give a shit as much about Cheese Factor. Oh, and the beginning kind of hooked me; I'm a sucker for musicals, what can I say.) SO ANYWAY, I LIKED IT AND I PLAN ON INVESTING IN IT since I already got the other two last Christmas.

I would say that the only thing that honestly turned me off of the movie was some of the cheesy lines, and the actor playing Alex. Not the we-lack-the-focus-to-properly-set-up-the-plot lines, but the ones that are supposed to be funny. I realize that these movies are kind of funny-movies, I mean for the love of god it's Brendan Fraser. (<3 George of the Jungle!) But those lines... like the ones they gave Jonathan... Yuck. Please, step back a little and realize those lines suck. (Or, director, your version of "delivering" sucks.) And the Alex character was way too suffering-from-sequelese-we-can't-get-anyone-decent-do-we've-got-some-random-guy-who-looks-like-Brad-Pitt. Bitch please. They kept Brendan Fraser, they kept the guy playing Jonathan, they got an awesome guy to play Mad Dog, they got a pretty good chica to play Evie, they got fucking JET LI AND MICHELLE YEOH, and this is the shit they got to play Alex-all-growed-up? Come on.

Also, Temple of Doom parallels kinda thick for my tastes, but at the same time made it more enjoyable. Lol, Shanghai nightclubs. What are you, a trope now? I hope not.




(Oh, also? Nights in Rodanthe looks like SHIT. Haha, I hate romantic bullshit like that... They totally made obx into something it's not and it looks DISGUSTING. If I am ever forced to watch that movie I will gag. I was watching the preiew decently until the woman like breaks down seeing wild horses actually running wild on the beach. TOO MUCH HORSES ARE NOT THAT COOL AND OBX IS NOT THAT EMPTY OF A VACATION SPOT SORRY GAME OVER.)

I am not ready at all for school. Packing up for corps I just realized this... I have Christmas stuff everywhere. I'm not moved in, I needed the time to relax so I still have stuff to move and then I still have to redo my room. Plus recruitment. Plus girl scouts. Plus the Minardi's project. Plus James' tattoo which was his birthday/Christmas present. Plus all the other art I owe people. (Hopefully... I can get that done this weekend, or rather, TOMORROW, while I sit by myself in the Denver airport for FIVE HOURS.)

Maybe I shoudl only take those 15 credits and not try to cram another class in there. That way I can focus on all this stuff, anc corps, and maybe looking at grad schools. *sigh* I hate "wasting" those credits, but maybe it would be good to have that space. Maybe I could join the drama club and help with props, I don't know.

Ugh. Kind of nervous about tomorrow because I should have been practicing, should have been working out. Should have been so many things... But mostly I am just stressed about school. I need a longer break, that's just the way I work. I need mental recuperation time.

Not to mention I barely got to see my friends at all, and a bunch of them are getting together tomorrow to hang out and catch up--and of course I will be in an airport for most of the day. And not even during a time when I can call them and chat over the phone while they are together... =/

FUCKING OWNED, WASTEWATER. TAKE THAT, BIATCH!

You know, I think the worst feeling in the world is feeling like you are missing something on an exam, like it is too easy, but eventually you figure you're just paranoid and just turn it in... And then you remember what you were screwing up as soon as you walk out the door. WHY DOES THAT ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME. I just did that... I knew that exam was too easy. And what I was missing wasn't even difficult! If I had just remembered I needed to convert two of the terms, I would have had the other values I needed. DAMMIT.

OH MY GOD I GOT A ONE ON MY PLAYING AUDITION! :D I don't know how that happened. But I am really excited. So January 2-4 I am headed off to Wyoming, where I still have to do a marching audition, but which I am not at all worried about. Marching, I love. Marching, I can do. (Their vis staff was not able to get to the camp, so we were done early and everything. It was lovely.)

Oh my god, I miss drum corps so much. I can't wait for next summer. Just need to do more pre-conditioning this time around, and I'll be good. Arm strength, ability to run... Especially since everydays in June will be a mile high and cold. Breathing block will be miserable. And it sounds like Troopers is big on running laps.

But I'm glas I made the choice I did... It was interesting to hear the guys at the camp talk about how vets would go off to the "good" corps for a year or so and then age out back where they had family. Basically, the impression I got from my audition at Phantom was right... They are mostly interested in winning, not in who you are. Apparently one of their friends was the center snare for Phantom--center snare--and the staff didn't know his name until several days into everydays. That's ridiculous. And not to say every winning corps is there, but it just makes me feel better about not going to Crown. I think it's insulting to get money out of camps for so long and waste my time, not to mention... that. So much a different type of family, it's not even funny.

As for my computer, UDit is completely useless. Every time I email them about a message I am getting (no matter how minor) their general response is a lame question about retrieving data I already gave them, and "if that doesn't help then bring it in". So once again, they proved completely useless and with several hours of programs that didn't work, I finally found the solution through Google (I ran the fake program name as well as the "trojan" name). Oh, I don't know if I got that far in explaining before--it turned out to be an adware file that only looks like a windows security message telling you that you have a trojan (mine was Trojan.Zlob.G, but the file itself was merman.exe) and recommends you download a removal program (Program Defender 2009). This is fake safety software that "runs" a diagnostic to find the issue and fails partway through, prompting you to upgrade. So then the hackers get your money. And the multitude of anti-spyware programs I now have downloaded got rid of the fake security program, but to get rid of the adware (the fake windows messages) you have to start your computer in safe mode, go to Applications, find the "Google" folder and delete the two fake files in it. (I was worried at first, but there's nothing else there--it's not actually a Google folder.) So, once again, UDit is a failure and I fixed my own computer simply with Google-fu.

And now, lots and lots of linkspam because I've been a terrible, terrible tab user lately. And no lj-cut because I am CRUEL.

I rather love this Neil Gaiman poster. And speaking of zombies, I just watched 28 Days Later, which is a pretty good movie but feels... incomplete, somehow. But it did remind me of watching Sean of the Dead, which I somehow connected to that from the fact that I finally got my Phi Rho paddle, and I thought it looked like a cricket bat, and Christine and I somehow determined we are going to play cricket with my paddle and bouncyballs. Yesss. I miss Nookball a lot, haha.

This may be the saddest PostSecret ever. Not the most depressing, but one I could never understand... That's a sort of compromise I could never make, and it must be terrible to be in fear of something that other people think is so great about life. Wow, that was a really concise version of what I think and probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense... Maybe I'll expand upon it more later. I don't know.

Harrison Ford doing J. J. Adams Comedy? I'd be up for that. He's really entertaining with dry humor.

Daniel Craig wants Moneypenny and Q in the next Bond movie. EXCELLENT. Craig should be my new best friend. I want Q back and I think they should keep John Cleese. He can do srsface just fine.

The interesting source of phrases such as "in the limelight". Cool beans.

FSM nativity, pirates included. I love it. (The displays of FSM lights are awesome, too.)

I am totally doing this in my room. Now just to find tables...

This freedom-of-religion article showed up on my friendslist somewhere. I've had that sitting around but today I randomly stumbled upon an article discussing it (and atheist messages) which I think is really interesting. Another article about atheism where I think the more interesting topics are unrelated--digital ghosts and older people's mentalities. My dad said he read an article about the testing of older folks, and that it's not the idea that "old people are grumpy" but rather, they lose the ability to censor themselves, so to speak. Which is interesting in contrast to the idea that they are like children.)

A really interesting article about the "anti-wedding" which I may have posted when I was talking about feminism. It has a lot of good points. Sorry about the awkward formatting, the link to the actual article was really messy.

Thylacines can open their jaws up to 120 degrees... That's so, so disturbing.

The octodress. Is it not amazing? As creepy and fucking disturbing as ocotpi are, they are really cool as a deocrative element. (However, when they decide to take over the planet, we are doomed.)

This is some pretty cool art with lamps and such in nature. Awesome.

I forgot about this Pushing Daisies soundtrack that was coming out! SO MANY SONGS, I LOVE IT

Pretty cool article about major movie studio logos. I forget what the original reason was that this was so fascinating... Some tidbit I can't remember at the moment.

Pretty cool old "music video" from 1928.

I like these alternative Christmas Tree ideas.

Someone commented on Betty Page's death calling her "spectacularly singular"... I don't know why, I really like that phrase. And it's true.

So tonight I went out to dinner with my parents and grandparents and my aunt and uncle, and we got to talking about Facebook and the fact that my dad has one to keep in touch with people, and then of course my grandparents being my grandparents we started arguing about the morality of employers checking the Facebook profiles of potential employees. Of course I just gave them my solution--lock your damn facebook. But it's interesting what some people might think about what's on your profile, and different points of view on that. And talking to some people, it's weird to have parents on facebook. I was just looking back at an older post from when dad joined, and I said "WHAT" like it's weird but I think moreso it was just unexpected. Laura apparently didn't friend him, but she, who knows, might have something to hide. (Partying, probably.) I don't necessarily want dad to see my excessive cursing or the fact that I'm no longer Catholic (not that he'd necessarily see "pastafarian" and "church of heathus christ of ledger-day saints" not as humor only), but you know what? Laura's cursed in front of him, he knows we watch shit-for-tv or movies sometimes, I don't care so much. I don't curse in front of him or my grandparents, that's good enough for me. But other people talked about having family finding out about photos on facebook that they didn't want their parents or others to see, and you know what? I don't really get it. If you're worried, make it private, friends-only. If you're concerned about your little brothers and sisters showing your parents... Here's a grand idea: don't do anything in your life you wouldn't be proud of. If you make mistakes, admit they were mistakes and move on, but if something is a concern to your image, don't do it! I don't understand why that's so hard for people... I mean, from peers to politicians, what's so difficult about making good decisions? About thinking things through... Honestly.

Oh my god there is a hilarious skit on Robot Chicken about the construction of the Raiders temple. IT IS AMAZING. Hopefully it will be up on youtube superfast.

OH MY GOD. THEY CAN TAKE IMAGES OUT OF YOUR BRAIN NOW. You have no idea how long I have been waiting for this sort of technology to get started... I want to record dreams like crazy.

Whew, I think that's everything for now.