I'll be glad when the holidays are over if for no other reason than we'll finally be rid of all these damn jewelry commercials. But I really really hate this one:
I can't really pinpoint what it is exactly in this commercial that pisses me off. I guess it's that the man is getting praised for giving the dog a bath. And that makes him some sort of ideal man. I'm assuming they live together, so it's his dog too. He should be washing the dog every once in a while. I guess I'm supposed to be impressed that he skipped out on watching a sporting event with his friends in order to bathe the dog? I'm not. I'm confused. If I came home and found that my significant other had blown off plans with his friends to give our dog a bath... I'd be suspicious about his motives. Is there something romantic about abandoning your social life for no apparent reason? But I guess the point of the commercial is that men like this don't actually exist, so buy your woman's love with diamonds. I think the commercial enforces unfortunate gender stereotypes (men should be praised whenever they do something domestic! ) and paints a weird picture of relationships.
Here's a brilliant episode of Target Women that pretty much sums up what annoys me about Jewelry commercials. The only thing she doesn't mention is that the jewelry in the Christmas tree commercial (the first one she makes fun of) is ugly. That's my biggest issue with that one.
If you can't view the video, go here: http://current.com/items/89614245/target_women_jewelry.htm
According to facebook, I have already done something "tomorrow." (Click the picture to embiggen.) Time travel is awesome, yo!
Also, I purposefully left in the ads along the right side of the page when I was cropping. I just wanted to point out that when I was listed as "single" I was only getting ads for fad diets and dating services (the latter I tagged as "irrelevant", the former as "offensive"), now that I'm listed as "in a relationship" I get ads for engagement rings and other wedding shit. It's not as pronounced as when I was listed as "single," but Facebook's targeted ads are ridiculous. Because all single girls need to lose weight and find a man, and all girls with boyfriends want to get married. Now. I literally LOLed out loud when I changed my relationship status and the very first ad when I refreshed my profile was an ad for engagement rings. Ha! Even when I do get engaged, I don't want a diamond, so there!
(And, in case it wasn't obvious, my subject line is a reference to Diane Court's valedictorian speech.)
Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle. Step 2: Post the first couple of lines from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing. Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly. Step 4: NO CHEATING! Step 5: If you like the game post your own
1. I never loved nobody fully, always one foot on the ground
2. You always knew a way to find my good half, and I knew just the way to make you cry
3. Girl, I know the hall looks dark, and the storm it seems so scary
4. My mom has this boyfriend, his name is Steve, I want him so very much to die
5. Where do you go with your broken heart in tow? What do you do with the left over you?
6. I had a friend named Ramblin' Bob, He used to steal, gamble and rob. He thought he was the smartest guy in town
7. I'm a modern girl, but I fold in half so easily...
8. The only girl I've ever loved was born with roses in her eyes
9. I'd like to have company during thunderstorms, I'd like you to fall for me but it'd soon turn lousy and wrong
10. See me driving down the street, I'm bored with looking good
11. You slept in your overalls after the wrecking ball bereft you of house and home and left you with sweet fuck-all
12. I fell in love again, all things go, all things go
13. All is fair in love and we're in love. Now that everybody's dead we can finally talk.
14. You wait up for me, I don't wake up for you. Would you like the company or are you sick of me?
15. Well, this is not a good sign. You don't know when, but you're running out of time.
16. You can't get to heaven in a sliver spoon. You can polish everything except for the mark on you.
17. I listened in, yes I'm guilty of this, you should know this. I broke down and wrote you back before you had a chance to.
18. I wear a ponytail like a waterfall, loud speaker cause a landslide, I have a room key and a Johnny, a good buzz, feeling all right
19. With your feet in the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, yeah
20. Heaven, I need a drug. Her eyes are all but fixed upon her coffee cup. Looking down, she tells you things are looking up. Take another slug.
21. When I'm 102, will the sky be blue? Will the night be long?
22. I've been a bad, bad girl. I've been careless with a delicate man.
23. Here I dreamt I was a soldier, and I marched the streets of Birkenau
24. I may be dead, honey, but I was left with my eyes. And underneath, sugar, well I've been sunk by your lies.
25. God only knows why you never listen to my records. God only knows why you never moved out west with me.
Oh man. I think I have a crush on Colin Meloy. I can't help it, this video is great and I love the song so so much. Here's Colin, inexplicably performing an acoustic version of We Both Go Down Together in an elevator in Amsterdam. It's adorable.
In case we needed more evidence of the fact that I'm terribly accident prone, earlier today whilst taking off my shirt to get in the shower, I managed to bash my elbow against the wall. It doesn't hurt that much any longer, unlike my knee, which hurt for about a week afterwards. Also unlike my knee: I've got a sweet bruise:
The web cam doesn't do the bruise justice, it's an awesome shade of strawberry pink surrounded by deep purple. And there's a little scab in the middle, because I also managed to break the skin. Yes, this was all caused by hitting my elbow on the wall while taking off my shirt. I've lived in this house for 15 years, it's not like I didn't know the wall was there.
Moral of the story: I never want to hear you complain about hitting your funny bone. I will laugh at your "pain." Also: I should not be allowed to take off my clothes or live in a place with walls.
First of all: Obama! Obama! Obama! I feel bad that he's inheriting all the problems Bush created, but, hey, things can't get any worse. I have faith, Obama.
But, it's not all good news. Those of you who have an interest in gay rights will be saddened to know that gay-marriage bans passed in 4 out of 5 states, including California.
I have some real posts that'll be up later today or maybe tomorrow, but until then enjoy a real-time recap of one of my favorite movies of all time. Click!
I've always been pro-choice. Every woman should have the right to choose what happens to her body. You may not like the idea of abortion, but after viewing this video you'll understand why anti-abortion laws are anti-women. It's not about religion or any of that, anti-abortion measures give fetuses rights above women, and that is dangerous for all women, not just those considering abortion.
The only person who reads this is a fierce Obama supporter, but I still feel the need to steal this quote from a feministing shirt: A woman candidate is not the same thing as a woman's candidate. Sarah Palin does not speak for me.
So, today I bashed my knee against the corner of this plastic tub thing at work. I hit it dead center about an inch and a half below my patella, which is apparently the most painful place to hit your knee. I didn't even get a cool bruise from it. All I have is a tiny little red bump, roughly the size of a pencil erasure, and it hurts like fuck. This happened about 11:30am and it still hurts when I use the stairs or squat down. Basically, it hurts whenever I bend it while I have weight on it. Which is a vast improvement from this afternoon, when it hurt. Period. I had to avoid putting weight on my right leg to give my knee some time to recoup. Unfortunately, my job doesn't really give me a lot of sitting around time, so after 5:30 hours with all my weight on my left leg, my left ankle began to HURT. So, for a good part of the day, I had 0 fully functioning legs. Let's just say it's a good thing I'm not a racehorse, or I would have been sent to that big Glue Factory in the Sky.
Tonight on The Daily Show, right towards the end of Jon Stewart's interview with Tim Robbins, Jon made a comment that he wanted dumber people in the Navy Seals. As anyone who has watched The Daily Show knows, right after the interview they cut to a commercial break. And the very first commercial shown after Jon Stewart says there should be dumber people in the Navy Seals? A Navy recruitment commercial. It was, for lack of a better word, art.
And of course, I can't call something art without thinking of this from The Soup:
Tegan and Sara have released the video for their new single "Call it Off". Being that it's quite possibly my favorite song off "The Con," I was predisposed to love the video. My own biases aside, it's a fantastic video. One simple, beautiful, powerful image is all you need in a music video if the song is equally simple, beautiful, and powerful.
Also, I love Sara's new haircut. I like it much better than the Forest Fone era haircut (remember back when T & S had the same haircut?). Back then it was too much of a pseudo mullet. Speaking of which, does Tegan just have one long bit of hair now? I mean, she's awesome and can do whatever she wants, but objectively, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Let's just look at pictures of Sara's pretty new hair:
I'm starting to about cutting my hair again. I don't know if I'd go quite as short as Sara, but I do like how her bangs kinda swoop into that side bit of hair.
I've been big on apartment therapy this week, but tonight I saw a post that touched on one of my biggest pet peeves. The post is about one-sided toilet paper holders. The post and all of the comments talk about how much easier and less annoying it is to change the roll on one-sided holders than on normal holders.
OH COME ON! I will never understand this. When I use up a roll, I grab another. It's not difficult to change the roll! I happen to live in a house where half the people never change it, so usually I notice that there's no paper right away and change the roll while I'm peeing. So it's not like I'm taking any extra time to change the roll. You know what really pisses me off, though? When someone takes a new roll out, and just sets it on top of the old, empty roll. Ugh!!! You've taken the time to notice there's no paper, you've taken the time to get a fresh roll, but the ten seconds it would take to switch rolls was just too much for you? AHHHHH!!!
And you know what? When I grab the last extra roll from under the sink, I'll actually walk to the garage and grab more. That way I'll never be stuck in the bathroom with no toliet paper.
I wanted to post something along these lines on AT, but I didn't want my first comment to be calling everyone else lazy and inconsiderate.
I just took this fun color IQ quiz that I found on apartment therapy, you should go take it too. I scored an 18, which I guess isn't too bad. (The lower the score, the better.)
Anyway, it reminded me of my attempted creativity the other day while rearranging my dvd shelves. I had to adjust my shelves because I own too many dvds. I thought about arranging them by genre, which I still might do, but my favorite attempt was this guy right here:
I really liked the way it was starting to look (obviously I wasn't finished arranging the colors quite yet), but you have to realize that this is only about 1/5 of my dvds, and that's almost all of the colored ones. Many of my dvds have white or black spines, which doesn't really work asthetically. Also, it would be really hard to keep this in order. It would be even harder to find the movie I was looking for. So for now I'm sticking with alphabetical.
Tonight I was examining my wish list on Amazon and I discovered that pretty much every item on the list falls into one of two categories: "Nerdy" and "Nerdy?" That question mark is very important. The items in the second category are things that aren't stereotypically nerdy, but having them on my list doesn't in any way make me "cool." Here we go:
Nerdy The Original Star Wars Trilogy (the one that includes the original versions of the movies) The first Four seasons of The X-Files Heroes, Seasons 1 and 2 (I almost put this in the "Nerdy?" category, but then I remember it's about superheroes) Bones, Season 3 (same as above, except it's about forensic anthropologists) Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Mystery Science Theater 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition All seasons of Futurama The Princess Bride (book) The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Special Extended Edition) Freaks & Geeks Special Yearbook Edition (This also very nearly made it into the "Nerdy?" category, but I put it back here because I added the special edition with 2 extra discs of bonus features to my wish list instead of the significantly cheaper 6 disc version) Pretty in Pink Special Edition (only on the Nerdy list because I already own the $5 Wal-mart bargain bin version of the dvd, which means I'm asking for this one only for the special features) Trivial Pursuit 1990's edition
Total Nerdy Items: 21
Nerdy? Psych, Season 2 The Watson Twins, Fire Songs and Southern Manners Waitress Pulp Fiction (I almost created a third category for this one ("Relatively Cool") but that would have been a lot of work.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones The Shawshank Redemption Beverly Hills, 90210, Seasons 3,4,5, and 6 (this probably should have gone in the first category, I know) Gossip Girl, season 1 (Hey, we all have our guilty pleasures!) To Kill a Mockingbird (the movie) The Royal Tenenbaums High Fidelity soundtrack
Total Nerdy? Items: 15
So I guess I'm officially nerdy. Without the question mark.
Every once in a while, I will actually use my spare time doing something productive.
Recently, I used a bunch of old magazines to make myself a coffee table. I found the idea for this over on Apartment Therapy's Re-Nest site (although, they used thicker magazines. Where they used two magazines to complete each circle, I used between 8 and 10). I've been lacking any sort of coffee table for months and I have years worth of Entertainment Weeklies lying about, so I was really glad to kill two birds with one stone here. The magazines that make up the table top are ones that I just couldn't fold, either because they had cool covers (Like Elton John with the caption "I'm Not Cranky!"), or hotties (Helloooo Matt Damon!). Also, anything with Heath Ledger on the cover didn't get folded, although only one made it onto the table top. It's actually a little uneven, but it's perfect to hold my fan or to set my drink down while I'm watching TV.
Also, I spent some time rearranging the furniture. I put my bed back against the wall, but that's not really interesting enough to warrant a picture. However, I finally found a place for my awesome silk scarf, which is now draped across my green chair. My mother hates this chair with the fire of a thousand suns. She'll be so happy when I move out and take that chair out of her house. It'll be like an exorcism.
I'm most proud of the pajama pants I made for myself. I bought this awesome "Nerds Rock!" fabric on clearance last week. I also bought the original Star Wars trilogy for 75 cents at a garage sale. Obviously I had to watch the movies while I made my pants. When was the last time you watched Star Wars? The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite, and I'm in love with Han Solo.
Here are my finished pants. The material is actually pretty thin, but they're still awesome. On my TV Luke and Leia are zipping around the forest moon of Endor.
I will freely admit that I have not read all the books on my bookshelf in my bedroom. I even have a select few that I have no intention of reading (Project Pope, I'm looking at you. You were purchased for humor and irony). However, the vast majority of my books were purchased with the intention that one day I will read them. They were not purchased to decorate a shelf or to make me look smart. I'm already smart and, honestly, my room could do with a little less clutter.
Apartment Therapy today linked to a company that is selling three themed sets of paperback books. While the idea of grouping similarly themed books together isn't a bad idea, what pisses me off is that the books are listed in the HOME DECOR section of the company's website. These are for people who are far too concerned with what other people think of their book collections. Read all about it here.
I don't know what intern wrote this announcement for Jenny's facebook page thing, but he or she obviously doesn't understand basic grammar. "Its" vs "it's" is a really common mistake, but you'd think they could have proofread it. Also, check out the awkward commas and sentence structure. Most importantly, the song is freaking called "Jack Killed Mom."
As previously mention elsewhere, her new cd entitled, "Acid Tongue," is being released September 23, rather than an earlier mention of September 9th. Her new CD features some of her past tour favorites, including, "Jack Killed the Moon," "Carpetbaggers," and featuring the band, She & Him, Elvis Costello, among many other fabulous artists. So please go buy the album when its released 9/23!
Despite the intense disappointment that was Under the Blacklight, and my lukewarm feelings toward the title track (hear it on Jenny's myspace), I will be purchasing this cd as soon as possible. I still love her.
I just bought four Andy Warhol posters from allposters.com. I'm really excited. Two of them were only $5, which is even more exciting. I'm going to frame them when they get here and arrange them on my wall. I'm actually going to get some of my other posters framed as well, at least my Rilo Kiley and Joe Firstman ones. I'll be sure to post pictures once I've got my "art" "collection" more organized.
Last night was Relay for Life here in Wilmington. Laura was participating, so I went down to support her team and check it out. I didn't stay for long, but I did convince my mom to buy me a raffle ticket so that I could put one in for the basket that my sister donated. Well, mom bought me 10 tickets, so I bid on many baskets. And I was a winner! Here's what I won:
1) I put my mom's name on this ticket, so I guess technically she was the winner here. We won some beaded jewelry that was made by a member of Laura's team. I don't actually like the jewelry, but I had ten tickets to get rid of.
2) The Chocolate Lover's basket. It's basically a bucket full of Hershey's Greatest Hits. My mom ate all the Milk Duds, which is kinda depressing, but I've still got enough candy to last me the rest of the week.
3) The Gourmet Delight basket. I don't remember what basket this is... it might be the one the Spiritline donated, which would be the only reason I put a ticket in for that one. I don't actually have this one in my hands yet, Laura must have forgotten to grab this one before she came home. They just called and I'll have to go pick it up later today.
4) Yes, I won the basket Laura donated. But wait! The story gets better:
Around Christmas last year my mom won a raffle at Morgan's dance recital. It contained a tea kettle, some teas, and some coffee cups. We're not a tea drinking house, so it sat in our closet gathering dust for six months until Mom had the brilliant idea to do the ultimate re-gift: donate it to the Relay for Life raffle. Laura bought new coffee cups, though, because one of the cups said "All I want is a normal life" which seemed a little insensitive for a cancer benefit. The cups she bought were from Target, and they're really cute. That's the whole reason I put one of my tickets in for the basket, because I wanted the cups. I didn't think I'd actually win. Now, I have my new lovely coffee mugs and the tea kettle is yet again sitting in our hall closet. If we haven't found another raffle to donate it to in the next year, Sara may well be seeing it as a wedding gift.
Also: Laura's team, Jenna's Joggers, managed to raise $4500. Go team!!
I'm not going to do a full post about Nashville just yet, but I thought I'd share my horoscope from Saturday:
Why waste all of your charm on new people who you don't know very well? Today, you should focus on the people who already know and appreciate you. They deserve the benefit of your wonderful wit and warmth more than anyone else, don't you think? If you spend all of your energy trying to put on a show every time you encounter someone new, what will you have left over for the people who stand by you through thick and thin? Let new people work harder at impressing you, for a change.
That's right. My horoscope told me to be mean to strangers.
I'm just about to head off on my one-woman roadtrip to Nashville, but I wanted to check my email first. At the very top of my Yahoo homepage is my horroscope, and today's is almost scary in its accuracy:
If there is any uncertainty to your plans today, it will only encourage you to be nervous or moody -- whether you consciously realize it or not. You really need a firm roadmap, today, in order to feel comfortable moving forward. So use your morning to nail things down. Return those phone calls and emails and make sure everyone is on board with the plans. You can get the stability you need in no time, and enjoy feeling more confident throughout the rest of the day.
I've got my roadmap and I'm ready to roll. See you in Nashville, y'all!
I finally own the Spaced dvds! It was out for a good week before I made it to Best Buy, and it's been about two years since I first watched the series. It was such a relief to finally own the set! And I'm such a nerd that I spent the entire weekend watching all the episodes and special features. I didn't much care for Kevin Smith's commentary, he seemed way too interested in Jessica Hynes's personal life.
Anyway, here is one of my favorite bits from my favorite episode. It's only a two minute clip, but there is so much awesomeness fit in.
So, have you seen the new J.C. Penney commercials that rip off The Breakfast Club? Or, as Pajiba put it: "Do you know what it’s like to feel your heart atrophy in under 60 seconds?"
So many things about this commercial piss me off. Let's start with the fact that apparently 45 kids have Saturday detention. Although, the commercial is so lazy in ripping off TBC that they never actually say that the kids are there for Saturday detention. They could very well be in homeroom, unsupervised. Because the only adults shown are the parents dropping off the kids at the very beginning. But the Principal and Carl the Janitor are the best! They don't even warrant a cameo?
Back to the kids. While the actors in the commercial are racially more diverse than the original TBCers, they all look exactly alike. Obviously they're all dressed in JCP fashions, but they're all dressed as preppy as possible. The girl who I guess is supposed to be Ally Sheedy's character is dressed in a magenta polo-style dress. WTF? I'm sure JCP could have found something black in the Juniors dept to throw on that actress. The entire fucking point of the movie is that 5 kids from different social groups are thrown together for one Saturday and they bond and become friends until Monday morning when they go back to being strangers. Ok, that last part doesn't actually happen, but I'm guessing.
The point of the commercial? I'm not entirely sure but I think it's "You're all exactly the same already, you might as well wear cheap JCP clothes."
Also, I hate the cover version of TBC's theme song they use in the commercial. So happy and uuugghhhhhh. That just reminds me of how happy all these little fuckers are to be in Saturday detention. They're losing an entire Saturday! They should be pissed! Not all smiley!!!!!!
Raise your hand if you think JC Penney should have kept the scene where the kids all smoke pot. Thanks, Ab, for raising your hand. If they kept the pot scene it would at least give the kids a reason to be so happy to be in Saturday Detention.
I really can't go on anymore, or my head will explode. Thanks, JC Penney, for taking a cherished film and bastardizing it so that you can sell some shitty clothes to children who don't know any better. But you forgot one thing: These kids you're selling to? It's their parents who are buying. And their parents were teenagers themselves when The Breakfast Club came out. Way to fuck it up, JCP marketing.
JC Penney sees us as they want to see us: as mindless idiots who won't recognize that they're trying to capitalize on our fond memories and sentimentality by putting forth a lazy hack-job version of a generation's favorite movie. I rarely shopped JCP to begin with, but I'll avoid it like the plague now. To paraphrase John Bender: "Eat my shorts, JC Penney. Eat. My. Shorts."
NOTE: I didn't upload the pictures through blogger because I'd already uploaded them to Flickr and it seemed like a serious waste of time to upload them all again. Unfortunately, blogger automatically crops the pictures so almost all of the pictures below are missing the far right side. For most pictures it's ok, but there are a few where Brian or Joe are cut in half. Click on the picture if you want to see the whole image.
I actually had to type out this entire thing twice, so y'all better like these pictures. At least lie to me and tell me you did. I just got this camera about two weeks ago, so I'm still getting used to it, which is why some of the pictures are fairly blurry. Also, some of the blur comes from the fact that I prefer shooting stage shots without a flash.
Anyway. The show, like always, was wonderful. My friend Abby and I got to the show very early, because we wanted to grab something to eat and catch up on gossip before the show started. This would turn out to be a very bad idea. The chicken quesadilla I had made me sick to my stomach for the rest of the night. I wasn't so bad that I was actually vomiting (I obviously wouldn't have stuck around if that were the case) but it was bad enough that I left not too long after the show ended instead of hanging out like I normally would have.
Let's just get on with the pictures/stories, shall we?
First up was Brian Wright. For some reason I have more blurry pictures of Brian than of anyone else, which you'll see. Even in pictures where everyone else looks fine, he's blurry. I don't have many pictures from his set because I took them all from our table because I'm lazy, so not many turned out decent enough to use.
The Tragedies' keyboardist taking a break onstage.
Here's a video of "Morning Cigarette." Yes, I filmed it from my table, which is why you'll randomly see people walk in front of me.
Next up was Tony Lucca. Before I go on to the pictures, I'll tell you a story about the Super-Drunk Lucca Superfans. This guy and this girl were obsessed with Tony. It was to the point of being weird. After the show Abby and I were sitting down at a table a few feet from where Tony was talking to some people. Mr. Super-drunk Lucca Superfan sat down at our table (uninvited!) and kept like drooling over Tony. "Dude, Tony Lucca is right there! RIGHT THERE! I can't believe you guys aren't excited... The next John Mayer is RIGHT THERE! Look, he's right there!" Eventually I got sick of his "right there!" shtick and bitched "Yeah, I have eyes. I can see him. If Abby were to fall over backwards, she would knock Tony over like dominos. Dude, just be cool!" I really wasn't feeling well, usually I just say the bitchy things in my head or wait for the person to go away, but this guy would just not give up. Even after I said all that, he still kept talking about Tony so Abby just started talking to me about whatever random shit she could think of (like her shoes and the MTV movie awards). As weird as Mr. Superfan was, Ms. Superfan was weirder, only because she was Super-super-Drunk. I'm surprised she could stand upright.
Anyway, my great view from the table that I had during Brian's set was blocked during Tony's set by a man that, I swear, had to have been 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide. It was ridiculous. So the only pictures I have are taken when I got off my lazy ass and went around to the side of the stage by the merch table.
Tony and a giant blue microphone
More of Tony and the giant microphone, and here his mic seems to be hitting him in the face.
Here Tony is in the process of being possessed by the ghost of Art Garfunkel, which is weird, because Garfunkel isn't dead.
I don't have any videos from Tony's set because I didn't feel like standing on the sidelines long enough to film one. But even though I couldn't really see anything, he sounded great.
While the audience dispersed between sets, Abby and I took the opportunity to snag a spot right up by the stage, so I got some really good pictures of Joe's set. I won't post commentary on all these pictures; I think they're fairly self-explanatory.
(This is the only example where the automatic cropping is actually helpful. In the full version, there's a creepy guy standing on the right that I really wish I would have cropped out before I uploaded the image to the internet.)
Tony Lucca is still being plagued by the giant blue mic.
I think this is Abby's favorite picture:
This one's really blurry, but it's one of my favorites
Brian "The Blur" Wright
You can't tell (and I didn't feel like taking a panoramic shot to fit them all in) but there are 8 musicians on the stage at this point in time.
Lap Steel, Lucca, Wright, Firstman, other keyboardist, bass, drums, tambourines. 8 musicians. If I recall correctly, they're playing 'Mrs. Rosenthal.' It was the last song before the encore. Also, Brian's right forearm has disappeared.
And, as I promised, here are the videos. If you are willing to wait 3x as long for it to load, you can watch the videos in high quality. (You might have to go to the actual page on YouTube for HQ)
"Fight Song" Fun Fact: at about 20 seconds in, you can hear Mr. and Ms. Super-Drunk Lucca Superfan shout something I can't understand at Tony.
"Breaking All The Ground" Fun Fact: Keep your eyes on Brian and Tony in the very beginning, they do a very entertaining little do-si-do.
"Saving all the Love" (partial) Fun Fact: At about 1:28, you can hear Abby say to me that this song is "another reason why I'm going to get kicked out of seminary school." Other reasons she jokes she'll be kicked out: swearing like a sailor and making fun of strangers. I'm very upset that my memory card ran out during the second chorus, but it has inspired me to buy a 4gb high-capacity memory card for the next time Joe (or, really, anybody) rolls through town.
Also, It's not Abby that yells "How Old?" in the video, it does kinda sound like her voice, but I distinctly remember that coming from somewhere off to my right, and Ab was to my left.
As much as I like all of my videos, had I known Joe was actually going to play a certain one of his requests, I would have saved the space on my memory card. Sadly, I missed my chance to get a video of Joe performing "Wedding Song." When I realized he was playing it, I thought about grabbing my camera, but it was inside its case which was inside my purse which was on the floor, and once I got it out I would still have to delete some stuff and by then we'd be pretty far into the song. But it was lovely.
Anyway, after the show ended, I got a glass of water and we sat down at a table to wait to say Hi to Joe (if you can remember way back to when this epic post started, you'll recall that this is when Mr. Super-Drunk Lucca Superfan sat down with us). I switched the memory card in my camera to the teeny one that you get when you buy the camera (you know, the one that holds like 12 pictures.) I still wasn't feeling well, and for those of you who are concerned about my health, these three pictures pretty much sum it up:
How I felt:
Putting on a happy face:
Done making faces:
Now, you may be wondering why I even bothered hanging around if I wasn't feeling well. One of the reasons is that Abby is the person who first introduced me to Joe's music. She saw him open for Jewel years ago and the summer we worked together at a camp (we were also roommates) she played his cd for me and the rest is history. So I owe her a lot. This is the first time she's seen him since that first show.
She did get her picture with Joe, but I won't post it because I haven't had a chance to ask her if she would want me to post it.
And, despite my protesting that I didn't want my picture taken because I would look sick, Abby and Joe insisted that I looked fine and so these pictures were taken, with Ab giving direction:
"Look sick!"
"Ok, now take a real one." And I still looked sick.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pictures, videos, and stories. If you made it all the way through, you're awesome.
We'll start off with the plan that I'm most sure about (about which I'm most sure?). Those of you who have seen me in the past year or so know that my hair is getting really freakin' long. Every time I go to get my hair trimmed Cari asks me how long I'm going to grow it. Well, I've never had an answer. But, I've made a decision. I'm going to grow my hair out for the next few months, and then around Thanksgiving/Christmas, I'm going to cut it all off and donate it to Locks of Love. Here is a recent picture of me with my long hair (and my hair is curled in this picture, so be sure to add a few inches to get a real idea about the length):
Actually, the way I'm leaning forward in the pic makes my hair look longer... That's actually right about where my hair hits if it's straight and I'm standing upright.
And when I get it cut, I think I'm going to go with a little Jenny McCarthy or Julia Stiles.
I think I like the Julia better, but I'm pretty sure that's just because I like Julia better in general. I'd feel better about myself taking a picture of Julia Stiles in to show Cari what I want as opposed to a picture of Jenny McCarthy.
Anyway, the other future plan, the one I'm less sure of (the one of which I'm less sure?), is the plan to get a Masters in Library Science online from the University of Illinois. I like working in the library. Sure, it's not as exciting or cool-sounding as when I was doing publicity for a film festival, but it's also not as stressful and I don't have to deal with bitchy "stars." And I'd have access to tons of books and I'd get to be smarter than other people. Also I'd pretty much have the freedom to move anywhere, which is big for me. I don't like feeling stuck, so I want the option to go to either a rural or an urban setting. There are libraries everywhere, a Librarian can find a job in any state. They're like nurses and strippers.
One thing: If I do become a librarian, will someone please buy me this poster?
After much debate, I bought the Canon Powershot S5 IS.
So far it has taken great pictures. I've only owned it about four hours at this point so I haven't had a lot of time to play with it. The only complaint I have is that, as you can see, it's not a small camera. In fact, it's fairly massive. Not quite a dslr, but it still has some heft to it. I'm worried that it's too big, that I won't be able to use it like I want to because I'll be too lazy. My Florida family is in town and we're having a 4th of July celebration tonight, so I'll take some pictures then and try and get used to the camera. If I can't, I guess I can take it back, even though there will be a 15% restocking fee, which kinda blows.
I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but do you know what happens when you have a paying job but very few expenses? You end up with a lot of cash and nothing you need to spend it on. I'm still used to my apartment living mentality: I have no money, but I can justify entertainment purchases every once in a while. I still think that way, I'm still justifying all of my unessential purchases. I spent my tax return money on a trip to South Carolina and the collectors dvd sets of Buffy and Angel. I thought of that money as "extra" money. And since I haven't been spending, I've unintentionally been saving my money. Which is nice, because there are a few expensive things that I need and/or want.
First: I really need a new digital camera. My old one is... old. The zoom button is breaking and the battery is wearing down (not holding a charge as long) and it's from the ancient times before digital cameras could record real video (it'll only record in 15 second blocks.) I really like taking pictures, but I mostly only take pictures at parties and concerts, so it's really not necessary to have a DSLR. Even though that would be hella cool. I've been reading product reviews all afternoon and I think it's down to one of the Canon PowerShots and one of the Sony Cyber-shots. Sony is winning so far in that I can get a cool looking camera in red. Yes, I'm superficial.
Speaking of red and superficiality, I want a new laptop. I don't necessarily need it, but mine is getting quite old, and it's about time to upgrade. I'm thinking of getting a Dell, possibly one of the Studio computers. In red. It's so worth another $25 to get it in red. All I really do on my computer any more is the occasional word document and Sims. I know the Sims is a really lame game when you think about it, but it is really graphic-intensive and hard on my poor Lappy. Once we get the wireless set up in this house (I think I'm going to have to pay for the router, because it will only benefit me) I'll be internetting on it too, and as well as my Toshiba has served me over the years, I'm ready for an upgrade, and it wouldn't hurt to have the built-in web cam.
One more thing on the shopping front: Despite vowing not to buy any more books for the rest of the summer, I've bought two new books this past week. One doesn't actually count as breaking my promise, because I knew that I was going to have to buy it anyway. So I threw $10 down on the last book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. It's one of my semi-guilty pleasures, and the second movie is coming out this August, and from what I've read it pulls stories in from all of the last three books, so we'll see how that works out. The other book I purchased I have no excuse for. I bought Jonathan Safron Foer's Everything is Illuminated. I saw the movie a while ago and I've been wanting to read the book. I was just goofing around on half.com last night and ended up buying it, and part of it was because the seller mentioned that it had the pink cover. I don't know why that appealed to me, but it did, so pretty soon I should have a pink copy of Everything is Illuminated arriving at my doorstep.
UPDATE: I've been going over product reviews online all day, and I think I like the Canon Powershot s5 IS. My only worry is that it's going to be too bulky, so I think tomorrow after work I'm going to go to Best Buy and check out how it feels. I want a camera that's more advanced than the standard point-and-shoot deals, but by no means do I need a digital SLR. I really like that this camera comes with a dedicated movie button, which is pretty sweet. My goal was to spend no more than $500, and this one should come in on budget when I add on the protection plan. It would be nice to be able to fit it in my pocket like the camera Laura has, but I want it do do more than just take pictures of my drunk friends. I mean, that's a nice feature, but I'd also like to take pretty pictures of flowers. I also like that this camera has a swivel LCD, which, to quote VMars from memory, is "nice for overhead shots and ground-level macro shooting." So, this may be my new camera, depending how I feel about when I actually have it in my hands.
I really liked the way it was starting to look (obviously I wasn't finished arranging the colors quite yet), but you have to realize that this is only about 1/5 of my dvds, and that's almost all of the colored ones. Many of my dvds have white or black spines, which doesn't really work asthetically. Also, it would be really hard to keep this in order. It would be even harder to find the movie I was looking for. So for now I'm sticking with alphabetical.
Actually, the way I'm leaning forward in the pic makes my hair look longer... That's actually right about where my hair hits if it's straight and I'm standing upright.
