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Happy Thursday! Although it was a touch windy, this was a nice and sunny summer-esque day. I even took a walk in the late afternoon and did not need a jacket! What an improvement over this fake summer we've been having.

You know what I love? Peppermint tea. I remembered because I just had some. It is heavenly.

So most of my activities this week stem from seeing Inception over the weekend with Carolyn and Steven. Disclaimer up front: It is good. You should see it.

Did it rock my world? Nah.

I know that I'll sound like a film school snob, but Nolan makes a great film regardless of story. He's a great and he's gonna be a legend, but I reserve my right to respect him but not be entertained by him. I have seen the latest five of his seven (written) films, and I honestly only loved one.

Memento? Circumstances like film school built it up for me. When I saw it, I was expecting...something that it wasn't. I was underwhelmed.

Batman Begins. I love Batman, so there we are. I love Cillian Murphy. I love that a Batman movie was made well, for once. Do I love this movie? I bought it cheap on fullscreen, haven't watched it once.

The Prestige. Rocked my world. Bought the script and had my world rocked again. Not everyone feels this way about this movie.

The Dark Knight. If this movie didn't have Batman in the title, it would have nothing for me. I acknowledge the level of skill and professionalism that went into the production of it; I acknowledge its artistic merit. It's a beautiful film. I didn't care for the movie.

Inception.

Oh, Inception. Your merits are multitude. Your casting impeccable. Your artistry, incomprehensible. Your story? I wish this was a movie that I could just watch and not be bothered to follow along. I wish it was meant to be that way. Unfortunately, after trying to grasp every bit of exposition (so neatly laid out and clearly stated), trying to piece it together for hours afterward, I decided that I just didn't care to solve it.

And not in a "this is too intellectual for me" or "I'm so frustrated, I quit" or "I love it's complexity and I can think about it for days on end" sort of way. I just was not motivated to spend any more time looking for answers that weren't ready to present themselves.

Which isn't to say that there aren't answers. It's a film of questions, certainly; a film that's meant to be unraveled and poked and prodded. Some one out there is having a fine time doing just that. If I cared enough, I would be that person. But, sadly, I was not given enough incentive to really put my heart into the story. The story didn't give me...what I want in a story, I guess.

Did I like it? Yeah. Was it cool? Yeah. How great was that one scene--you know what I'm talking about? That was #$@#%% awesome. It had a target and it firmly struck home......I was just standing a little off to one side is all.

Now let's talk Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I will see the movie again just for him. andthatonesceneyouknowwhatI'mtalkingabout In the meantime, though, I visited my local Blockbuster store and brought home with me (500) Days of Summer, Mysterious Skin, and The Lookout.

There went my Wednesday.

I did not at all expect to like 500 Days. My reason for this being its indie nature and Zooey Deschanel, an actress who turned me off entirely with her performance in Syfy's Tin Man.

Extended Parenthetical:
(I've been known to collect actors. Wednesday spent with Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a prime example of this phenomenon. I watched Tin Man solely because it briefly included Callum Keith Rennie, whom some of you may know as Leoben. I stooped to watching The Butterfly Effect for him. It was slightly after my Rennie collection phase that I saw Memento, and you can imagine my surprise when he showed up there, as well. He was also in Blade Trinity, which was an even nicer surprise.)

I've admired Joseph Gordon-Levitt in passing since I saw Brick. Brick is a film that I have complicated feelings for. Perhaps we'll go into that another time. Anyway, the kid can act, and after Inception I remembered that. After Tin Man, I decided that Zooey Deschanel could not, and my dislike of her trumped my like of him, which lead me to skip 500 Days until now.

I loved it! It was quirky and I laughed so much and she didn't offend me with her performance at all! It was a neat little thing. By far my worst complaint was the narrator, who I thought was sort of weak in a not-strong application of the device. Oh well. It was cute.

Mysterious Skin and Lookout...no, let me rephrase. Gordon-Levitt in Mysterious Skin and Lookout was also fantastic, top-notch. Mysterious Skin is a good film that is dark and harsh; Lookout is an average film that tries to pack a punch and delivers a...something less than a punch. But it serves as a great showcase of Gordon-Levitt's palette of character acting, so that's wonderful.

Tomorrow I watch G.I. Joe 'cause he's billed in it. I know, right! The things I do for actors.

Today I watched A Single Man (downer!) and Shutter Island (more successful mindtrip!)

Other than that, I've had a standing date most nights with Sam to watch Digimon. We both load up the episode, pause at the title, and then we press play and IM about it. What great memories. Off to do that now!

-Steph

Sewing and Songing

Happy Thursday! It's been a creative week. As well as re-organizing. A re-organizing week? My mom decided to get rid of the thing the tv was on, so, long story short, we have a HD tv over the fireplace now. Blu-Ray-riffic!!

So while Beth was on her whirlwind tour of the West, we finally managed to record a demo of LIGHT IT UP. Have you heard it yet? When I put it up on Facebook, I pimped it up, but here it is again. THIS is a link to our Facebook page where the song is located; THIS is our Facebook band page; THIS is our listing at last.fm, and you can also listen to it there and boost our play count.

For a demo, it's not half-bad, no? And for a first-ever song? Don't even get me started.

We ended up recording in my garage, all legit like. We tried late Thursday night, because Beth had to get to Berkeley on Friday, but we ended up not using anything we did at that time. So most of Friday morning (some of which was taken up by moving furniture) was re-recording, and trying to finally get it right. If we hadn't been rushed (I know, I know, we had a full three days to do it), it would even be better!!

When we do the rest of the songs and re-record them for the album, I promise it'll be perfect.

I posted LIGHT IT UP soon after midnight on July 20, because I wrote it some time after midnight on April 20 (4/20 blaze it lol). So. It took us long enough, right? We'll see how quickly we'll get any more songs finished. And I promise, there are more.

I also promise the next one is more upbeat!

The days for putting stuff in the county fair starts tomorrow, so today I sewed, lol. You can only enter one thing per class, so I had to come up with a bunch of stuff for multiple classes. (Multiple classes = more chances at $$)

I ended up making a felt Cheez-it pillow thing, a purse thing from the pockets of some old cargo pants, a fleece hat in the style of a Moogle, and the promised lime/lemon apron to match the kitchen curtain. It only took me less than seven hours!

Pictures?

I do so love sewing. I'm so used to language-based art that sometimes I'm surprised at what I make without words. Sewing is like a puzzle, that you have to map out and piece together in the right order. But you get to think about color and shape and function. But you also have to be careful about not injuring yourself. There are so many ways to do that, sewing! It's an exciting craft.

I also have already picked a funny looking lemon. This year, I also hope I will be the only entrant to the class. Either way, I feel confident that that $5 is mine.

YESTERDAY I went in and had another (and much more official) eye exam, and walked outta there three hours later with a new pair of glasses as well as some prescription sunglasses. You can see them in the sewing photos! As for the sunglasses, they're a very nice Stu Sutcliffe style Raybans. Because I have some sun damage in my one eye, so now I should wear sunglasses. :<

But other than that, my eyes are great! And the new glasses have a stronger prescription, but I can see and my eyes haven't hurt at all yet (like they used to all the time). And they're cute, no?

Well that was my week. It was great. How was yours?

-Steph

10 Minutes

Happy Thursday! Okay so we're playing Beatles Rock Band and I only JUST NOW REMEMBERED MY THURSDAY OBLIGATION. So typing is fast and spelling is poor.

This week I sewed. Sewed curtains. So many curtains. At least two curtains. For the kitchen and my room. They are cute. Yes.

I also have three days off and Beth is visiting. Hooray, Beth. We went to Rocket Fizz and to where our band hangs out. And we bought like every record.

I got
Bob Dylan
CSN
ELP
Buddy Holly LIVES.

Beth got
Disraeli Gears
Lou Reed
Tommy - The Who

Come online and play rockband with us. We need a singer and/or another guitarist. It'll be great.

I also watched a bunch of Digimon with Sam, and that was the best ever. TY, the internet.

AND it was Carolyn's birthday a lil bit ago. We did Zombie tag. And then I had zombie apocalypse dreams. ty.

AND ALSO. Beth woke up with a weird finger, and SOMEHOW I had a dream at the same time where I had the same symptoms. Honest.

Helter Skelter.

Peace and love, peace and love.

-Steph

It was the AX

Happy Thursday! How are you all enjoying your mid-summer fall? We here on the coast sure are. Although I guess everywhere else is burning up. Lucky. I mean, it RAINED here on Tuesday.

So Thursday bright and early we set off to the AX, stopping only to pick up our newcomers. Because we always bring someone who has never gone before. Want to come next year?

Carolyn made six Dai Li outfits. I, of course, was Speed Racer. I think it worked out well to have the group and then the auxiliary member (me) because then I got to take pictures of them so they'd have at least one good one. Because people may be your friends, but that doesn't mean they know how to use your camera.

It's nice being at the LA Convention Center for a number of years in a row now, because everything's familiar. We know where the food is and where the panel rooms are and where the cosplay is at.

OH and can I tell you what being at the AX is like? It's like being on both sides of Brigadoon--it's gone 99% of the year, but when you're there, it feels like the sun went down on one AX and rose on the next. Everything is the same. The people, the events, the people AT the events. It's a wondrous haven for "[]our [kind]," as the hotelman (somewhat) put it. (He said "your group," meaning everyone at the AX. I liked the exclusivity of it.)

The exhibit hall was so packed this year, and there seemed to be so little to buy, that we made it through there end to end twice in as many days. Some years, crawling the whole of the exhibit hall is a con-wide process. It's not my thing, anyway. I happened to buy two pieces of Naruto swag: a sweet mug with the Kyuubi and Naruto's seal on it as well as a Icha Icha Tactics wallet. Steven also procured a lil Sasuke thing, which, after careful application of Japanese, was revealed to be a scented bath toy.

I guess it was a Naruto year. My purchases may have been influenced by the fact that all last week I watched like thirty episodes of the thing, trying to catch up. That's the most anime I watched in the entire year. But it was worth it!!!

Between the shops and the cosplay, it seemed a popular move to stick with what worked. I'd say that 90% of all cosplay was from the big titles, Naruto, Bleach, Final Fantasy, Pokemon. And even within those groups it was mostly the same thing over and over; Akatsuki, Ichigo, Cloud, Organization XIII, misc Pokemon trainers. So a lot of things that were iconic and recognizable, but not altogether varied or unique. These are the people I generally don't take pictures of, because there's so many all over the place. If I do, it's because they were my fave or because their costume is super good. Generally I try to take pictures of things that are amazing (like the Pokemon ANBU) or less common cosplays of things I really like.

Here are my pictures, btw.

There aren't too many stories to tell. We tried to watch Chocolate Underground, but it was moved so we watched ICE instead, and boy was that crazy. Full of eye-licking and birds turning into flowers (watch for it @ 1:28). We left early to go to the "Laser Spectacular" from which we also left early because it was a choreographed glowstick dance. But then we watched Ninja Nonsense, and that was well worth it.

If you skip ahead to 5 minutes on this video, you can see Carolyn and them up at the Avatar panel. They won books!

Geez I just spent half an hour looking at youtube vids to see if we were in any more. Not yet.

So now I'm all amped up on sewing stuff?! I made a fleece hat ('cause those are super popular with this crowd) and today I made these lil charm/coin purses. One step closer to an Etsy shop, I'm tellin ya. What else can I make that's super cute?

Well okay, I'mma watch the new Naruto and then it's sleepstiem.

-Steph

PS
I liked the AX. I forgot how much I loved it until I was there.

GOOD MORNING.

Happy Thursday! It's AX day!!!

It feels weird that it's already here, because my own costume was halfway done from Halloween, so I didn't have to rush about it. That, and everyone else is being something different, so I didn't end up helping with that. So I guess this strange lack of being stressed out is what's so startling.

That and our regular group is all off to college, and everyone's working, so there wasn't any "hang out at Carolyn's house and do AX stuff" either. Sadface. Because like last summer I was working like six hours a week. Those were the days.

I feel like I'm totally forgetting something. Probably, I'm not? Hopefully? Gotta go to the bank before I leave. Yes.

OH so, Colorado. Wait. Already recapped that. Sheesh. I can't remember nufink.

Well on Monday I took my folks to the airport, and ended up making an LA day of it with Beth and Megan. Porto's! A must, if you're hungry in Burbank (or Glendale!) I'm still eating the loaf of fancy egg bread I got.

And then we tried to go to the Getty, but it's closed on Monday! So we went to the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena instead. What a strange day. It was full of shouting and clapping and singing in the car on the freeway.

And then I went to work.

Also, I'd just like to say that yesterday was so totles cold and windy, alllll day. Until like 6:30 when I was getting ready for work, I noticed that it was sunny as heck. 12 hours later, it's still sunny. GOOD MORNING EVERYONE.

Well, I'm off. I'll put up pictures when we get back.

-Steph