Happy Thursday

And then winter was over

2012-01-26T22:05:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! It rained one night and one day this week, and then it's been in the 70s ever since. Way to go, California! Everywhere else it's all snowing and what have you, but here we don't even know the meaning of the word winter.

Worked the whole day today, which is great because tomorrow I get paid and I have just enough gas to get to the gas station before I have to go to work. But it jumped four cents just today, so it sucks that I had to wait so long.

I also feel like I've just been sick--not that I'm getting sick, but the other way. Like how you feel a bit stuffed up like, the day after you've been sick? But I haven't been, so I don't even know what's going on.

This blog was just a big shrug.

-Steph

Midwinter Thursday

2012-01-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! It got cold again! Maybe gonna rain this weekend. So there's that.

What did I even do this week? Finished the first two series of Doctor Who and then took a Torchwood break to be chronological. Ummmm played Borderlands with Carolyn and an online friend. Worked. Jogged.

Today we all went to Thai food.

At work all week I got to spend some hours standing on the corner waving a sign. I listened to podcasts. Learned some words in Welsh.

I had a dream last week which I'm adapting into a short, a sort of a Doctor Who/O. Henry mashup because my M.O. is to absorb absorb absorb and then my output is a distillation of whatever went in. That's why I wrote so much fanfiction in my day. I couldn't not.

Wrote a Doctor Who fanfic. But that must have been last week, actually.

Accidentally playing CastleVille I'll try to stop I promise.

I don't know. It wasn't a bad week. Wish it was warmer. Doing a whole lot of nothing at work, which is mind-numbing and sort of carries over into real life. I'll try harder this week.

-Steph

The Long Weekend aka The Short Vacation

2012-01-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Today was the fifth day I've had off in a row. The freedom! A mixed blessing, of course, in this economy, but I tried to make the best of it. It was actually going quite beautifully until these last few hours where my mystery headache set in and wiped me out. I coulda been a contenda.

Did we speak of Doctor Who last time? For your sake, I'll check.

...

Ah, I mentioned it quite in passing. For my sake, I'll elaborate.

WHY NO ONE MAKE ME WATCH THIS SOONER. TELL ME WHY. Although, everything in its right time. Who knows, maybe if I watched it years back I would have hated it? We did watch an episode in school, and just like BSG, I scoffed and refused to see what the big idea might be. What a silly human child.

ANYWAY it's terrific. Eccleston, as my first Doctor, will always be "THE Doctor," but Tennant is growing on me at an alarming rate. Some of the stories are dumb, some of the actors are crazy annoying, but it's funny as all get out and the heart is really there. Worth every cent of its cult classic status.

It also makes a lot of Torchwood things make a lot more sense, lol.

So when I wasn't do that this week, I was probably either applying to jobs or biking with Carolyn. We've been up to see Beth at work, and almost all the way to the harbor. While my bike was at the shop I practiced on the stationary one at home so actual biking wouldn't be too much of an impossibility. The last time I seriously biked was probably early high school. Now if there was anywhere else to go, or if Ventura was safe to bike around!

Okay pals, it's been fun, but I gotta go sleep this off. Hopefully.

-Steph

Wull Hullo There Thursday

2012-01-05T23:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! 2012 started out as a heat wave, which, though unexpected, was not by any means unappreciated. I forgot I'd been calling it "Australian Christmas" all last week, compared to last years which was, like, flooding if I can recall correctly.

(Which, let's face it, is not one of my special talents.)

Already started my spring cleaning, an activity befitting of the weather if not the month. Mostly just getting rid of stuff that I haven't needed in quite a while, but now it's the time where I can let it go without freaking out about it. There were some things in my closet, shirts and stuff, that I'd stored there with the vague idea that if I needed them for costumes (like, for movies or whatever) they'd be available. But seriously, when was the last time I just sat around making a movie? Do I even know where my camera is? Yep, it's under the bed. Where it's been for at least two years. So it's time for those shirts to go.

Two of them are actually dresses, which for some reason my sister bequeathed to me (they're in my closet, after all) so I texted her saying "can I throw these out?" and she was all "no." And I'm like "the one still has the thrift store price tag on it." And I mean, I'm never in my life going to use them. She's not, either, she doesn't even live in this state. "no," she says. So if I ever get around to taking them back out of the give-away box, they're going in a pile in her closet. But not back in mine.

I even threw out--recycled--that old Build-A-Bear box/house I'd been saving for in case I needed a cardboard house. Now my closet has a big gaping hole in it.

Other than that I've been sulking around, put a computer together, got my bike tuned up, reading books, and watching Youtube and Doctor Who. A mixed start to the year, but it'll turn around.

-Steph

K-Cups

2011-12-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I almost said "Howdy Thursday," which would have been a severe slip. At least this isn't a live blog.

Howdy, nonetheless. How were your Christmases and/or assorted winter holidays? I hope they were the best yet.

Right now I'm wearing my Batman varsity hoodie and the shirt with the huge cat face on it that I received from my mom. The best story is I went outside wearing the shirt, and my tiny niece signed "cat" and I was all "where? where is the cat?" But I was wearing it all along.

So my entire family was over for Christmas, and that was a full house. But I haven't seen my brother's family since that hectic stop-off in Colorado a little while back, and I don't remember the last time my sister was here. Maybe in the spring time? And the last time the three of us were at home at the same time? I don't know.

We baked a lot and had a turkey and a ham, pies, cakes, cookies, ricey crispoes, it was ridiculous. Donuts. Fish n chips. Coffee. I had to go to work a lot, but I came back in time to hang out with the kids and play board games and whatever. We watched the Tourist which was only worth it for Timothy Dalton.

Travel plans were arranged quite epically -- Beth vacated my sister's room the day before my sister arrived. My first day off was yesterday and that was when she was flying back, so I got to drive down to get her; at the same time, Sam was visiting a friend in Thousand Oaks, so he got to hang out with me for lunch and then go help pick up Beth. Then my brother and all them left, so the living room was free for Sam and Beth to sleep over. So I got to see everybody! Even Carolyn called from Vietnam last night.

A very social Christmas. It was nice to have people around and have different conversations and laugh about crazy stuff, but the introvert in me just wants to sit in a dark room for a little while, haha. And sleep. I'd really like to sleep.

Last night I dreamt that APU chapel was on boats. And the chapel band was Linkin Park. IF ONLY.

So now everyone is gone, Beth is back, and it's time to settle back to normal... except for the work situation, which gets weirder daily. Shrug. There's no such thing as normal, anyway.

See you next year, I suppose!

-Steph

Now I can work on my novel

2011-12-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Are you all ready for Christmas? I mostly am. Gotta wrap the last of it, but other than that we're good. I was up real late last night wrapping and now I'm sooo sleepy. Workin on a sugar coma, too, so I'm getting this out of the way early.

Kevin and Gretchen and all the kids came over today and we made green ricey crispoes and red ricey crispoes and peppermint bark and cinnamon rolls and lemon snowballs. I ate every thing. But that's what Christmas is for, right? All these treats you never make at any other time of the year.

They're coming back for Christmas proper, but it was nice to see them all in like a little preview. Everyone is so tall, and the little one is trotting around like a champ.

Carolyn and Steven dropped by because they're going to be out of town for Christmas, so that was fun. We terrorized Donnie with the electric hamster I got for her. It was the best day ever.

I guess the big news of the week is that a month from today I'm out of a job. They told us day before last that our store's getting shut down. So on the one hand, it's a very sarcastic Merry Christmas, but on the other it's finally a reason to get out of there and go do something else. Come on by and say hi before we scatter to the winds.

Merry Christmas and Happy Thursday.

-Steph

Chilled

2011-12-15T22:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! All I can think about is how cold it is. And I know some of you aren't in SoCal and you are actually having cold weather, and I salute you for it. But it's cold here to me and I am cold and it makes me pretty edgy.

Well our kitchen is done, right. Except we're getting new flooring in sometime this week. Then it will be done done. But it's a real kitchen now, with a sink and all that. Inaugural kitchen dinner I made... shoot what was it. Oh yeah, individual lasagna rolls that Giada taught me how to make. But for the filling I used a variation on the Greek yogurt casserole I made a while back. It was good, very Christmassy. I'll do it again.

Yesterday I made granola-crusted salmon, but I don't quite have the crusting of salmon technique down yet. It was more like salmon with a granola bar on top. I'd probably be better off making those two things separately next time. I also baked a brie in a puff pastry, and that was interesting. I also tried making a peach pie but something somewhere went horribly wrong and it's really more of a peach soup in a dumpling crust. Not what I expected at all.

I've still been watching Food Network and Cooking Channel practically non stop. I don't know what it is, but that's all I'm interested in. Even though half the time it's Giada or Paula, who are not my faves, I can't turn it off. Then there's Chopped and Chef Hunter and Iron Chef America and the Next Iron Chef and the Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs and Chuckmas and all that. I'm addicted.

I really want to make something with cranberry and orange, but I don't know what.

Haha, a little while ago Beth was all BRB and now she's back with eggrolls from Jack in the Box. Pretty random.

Almost done with Christmas prep, still trying to get the last few things rounded up before the deadline. It's only, like, a week and a half from now! But we'll get there somehow.

Ok. Gonna go watch Doctor Who or something equally geeky. Carry on!

-Steph

When the snow comes

2011-12-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I got a new hoodie in the maaaaail so this weather has been a bit more bearable. Can't wait for it to be over, though. When's springtime?

The cool thing about my new hoodie is that it bears a passing resemblance to clothing worn by "the biebs." And before you think that this blog has gone straight down the drain, don't worry! It's a segue!

Not into anything good, though. Beth taught me some ukulele chords and I was playing them, and they were great and we were jamming, and then all of a sudden DISASTER STRUCK.

"Beth," I said anxiously. "I don't want to scare you, but I think this is a Justin Bieber song."

And it was. So we covered it.

Which is fine, because our band's facebook page hasn't had any activity in over a year. Anything's better than nothing, right? But it also goes to show that after playing the ukulele for about three days, you can become an international superstar!

What else can I say. Oh, our new kitchen will be done tomorrow, I think. Perfect timing, because I've been overloading on Cooking Channel and Food Network and I need to get my iron chef on real soon or else I'mma explode.

Bought Borderlands cheep on Steam thanks to a tip from my brother, so I've been playing that. Still fun! Of course been playing Minecraft when the server isn't being janked by power outages. Started the last season of Chuck, but it's got a sort of weird tone that isn't entirely palatable. Hopefully it'll even out before the end.

Been working. Sleeping sometimes. Laundry. Packages from Amazon arrive daily for you people. :3

-Steph

56 is freezing here

2011-12-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Don't judge. We have weak constitutions out here, and anything below 65 requires a sweater. Or, more accurately, a hoodie.

But maybe it's just me. I can't STAND the cold. It's one of my nemesises. True story.

Yesterday me and Beth went and saw the new Twilight. Dude what was that movie even about. I don't even remember, I wasn't paying attention. The best part was when all the wolves were SHOUTING at each other it was like what is even going on. It was so scary under the circumstances. I'm sure I laughed inappropriately at no less than four things, but luckily it was just us two at the very back and two other peeps at the very front. The worst part about that movie is even if you've read the books and seen them all and everything, you're still like THIS is what this has all lead up to?! It's so arbitrary and downright weird. Bah.

Our kitchen looks like a kitchen again, minus countertops and a sink. There are sooo many cabinets now. All empty, of course, but not for long. We got a new fridge, too. And painted the wall yellow. It's like a brand new house.

Finished Chuck season 4 yesterday. What a cute show. A lot of times with the spy stuff or the tech stuff I'm like lololol that's so duuuumb, but when it comes to real human relationships and the way the episode turns out so adorably, tv just doesn't get much better. Now I just need to scout around the internet for the new season so I can catch up before it's all over.

I need to go get a cocoa or a cider or something, 'cause it is frrrreeeeezing in here. :<

-Steph

Thursgiving in the Wild

2011-11-24T20:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I was promised a rain storm today, but it never came. How sad is that! It's going to be all sunny and stuff for the next while, and the storm would have been a nice seasonal reminder.

How was your Thanksgivings? Mine was pretty different. They just ripped out our kitchen this week, so it was going to be different no matter what. This morning the dining room was all plasticked off like a quarantine zone and we had McDonalds for breakfast!

After work I had to park like three houses down across the street, but I got home just in time to help my folks bring in groceries--Turkey breast, mashed potatoes, mashed yams, scalloped potatoes, corn, corn bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, olives, cheesy broccoli, rolls, um. All microwaved one at a time, but it was pretty legit. Why don't we do this every year? So hassle free.

There's still a pie left down there, and "Christmas Snack Cakes" which are just hexagonal Fancy Cakes. Oh my gosh where am I going to put it all.

But now we can really turn towards Christmas, now that these lesser holidays are finally out of the way. Now I know the consumer world has been playing Christmas music for a few weeks already by now, but I try my best to put it off until its time.

On the other hand, all that stuff I ordered off Amazon has already started coming in, so maybe I think ahead at least a little bit. :3

Stay warm everybody! Happy Thursgiving Day!

-Steph

Star Dazzle

2011-11-17T22:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Today I saw my good friend Orion again, which was a fun surprise. When I was little, my dad took me outside and showed me Orion and Taurus and the Pleiades and Cassiopeia, but we never got around to going out in any other season and learning any of the others. Sirius is my star, so I know Canis Major, but if it's not falltime I can't tell you what's up there at all.

Just now me and Beth went out there with my glow in the dark book and we found Auriga, Gemini and possibly Cepheus. Opinions differ on whether we found Pisces. Now my neck hurts, and it's cold out there, bro!

(speaking of, Happy Thursday Birthday!)

Well today I got to drive some work peeps down to a work meeting, so that was a pretty jolly road trip. We all arrived alive, too, so that's a plus. It was a nice change of pace, in terms of what they pay me to do.

Yesterday was baking day because next week they're ripping out my kitchen. :< I dashed out a pumpkin pie and a half dozen lil' pumpkin pies. I also made a "soup" which was made out of mashed potatoes, mashed yams, the rest of the canned pumpkin, and half and half. Quite nice! Seasoned with a dash each of the same spices I put in the pie, that's something I'll be making again.

Carolyn came over, too, to pick up some stuff, so it was like a weird watch-Stephanie-make-a-mess party. We had some leftover pumpkin pie filling, so the three of us cooperatively created a monster: pumpkin pie filling, marshmallows, oats, chocolate chips. The oats absorbed the filling, so it really ended up like gross chocolate spice oatmeal. Live and learn.

I just found out that BSG has been on Hulu for like ever, so I'm spontaneously doing a re-watch. I'm on episode eight with Leoben. :3

Speaking of watching things again, I showed Beth Dylan Dog and Superman Returns, and we also smashed out Twilight Eclipse while smashed. How many of you are going to the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn today? I'm not.

-Steph

Raffle Thursday

2011-11-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Today me and Beth won the Rocket Fizz raffle! That is, we each got a ticket from when we were there last week, and one of them was a winning number. $10 to burn, and we spent it all on candy and pop. Pretty exciting, winning a raffle!

This week has gone a little like this: wake up, go to work, come home, watch a movie, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, come home, watch a movie, go to sleep, wake up, go to work....

We watched Superman I and II, Twilight New Moon, about 12 episodes of Chuck, and HSM 1 and 2 (we watched those last two just now). Waiting on the table to be watched are Eclipse, The Terminator, The Big Lebowski, Superman Returns, and Dylan Dog.

Kind of a good mix.

Today was a pretty good Thursday as it was a day off, and we won a raffle and got to watch some silly movies. I also made some matzo ball soup and some cranberry walnut white chocolate chip cookies. Beth made grilled cheese sandwiches. Today was good weather for it.

Been writing a tad, mostly on my lunches when there's nothing else to do. It's pretty lame stuff, but at least once it's written it's editable. You can't do much to it if it's only in your head. I just typed it up and it doubled my wordcount for the month, bringing us to... 1,271 words. Yaaaay. Hey, I wasn't working eight hour days last year, now was I.

Eek, I gotta go get some laundries started. Then probs a bit more writey write. Peace out, yous.

-Steph

NaNo Thursday

2011-11-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I spent my time actually trying to write some words, so as it nears midnight, I'll treat you to some unedited, unexplained prose. The way I see it, it's probably the prologue to an Epoch side-story/flashback called

The Chaos Gauntlet

Almost there.

With another ringing crash, Huxley parried a strike that made her teeth rattle, the exertion causing every muscle in her body to scream back at her as she met blade with blade. She twisted and the blow scraped off her sword and bounced up against the armor protecting her shoulder, punching her backwards amid a flare of sparks.

Under the echo of steel on steel, Huxley faintly heard her name shouted out. Her only response was a grunt when the momentum smashed her into the damp cavern wall behind her. She was already bracing to intercept another strike.

It met her like a hammer, forcing the air from her lungs. The swordsman behind this flashing blade was bigger, stronger, and tireless. While she fought for her breath and struggled to push him off, he effortlessly leaned in, using his greater mass to pin her.

Huxley growled ferociously, sweat stinging her eyes under the cover of her helm. Shoulders pressed tight to the wall, she was literally using every last ounce of strength just to keep his blade from dipping closer. It wasn’t working.

Her growl ripped out of her and shattered off the uneven tunnel walls, a command:

“NOW!!”

She dared glance up into the shadowed eyes of her opponent, seeking them out through the visor. Just as she dreaded, they rolled wildly in his head, certainly unseeing. The irises glimmered an eerie crimson as they flashed from side to side. Chaotic. Huxley shuddered, her grip slipping.

Then to her eternal relief, the cursed soldier removed himself from her personal space, leaving her to haphazardly slide to the rocky ground. She hastily clawed at her helm one handed, practically shoving it off her head so she could get in a proper lungful of air. Her opponent howled as he was dragged off, giving one last swipe before his arm was bound as well. She knocked it aside with a steel boot and sighed.

“You’re bleeding,” Bentley snapped, picking his way in between her and the man in the blood red armor. He grunted as he went, struggling to hold the dimly glowing lines that held the man at bay. One glance over his shoulder at Huxley had one of the threads of the net dissolve as he lost his concentration, causing an uproar from their teammates as the sword again crashed free.

“You gonna focus or what?” Huxley grumbled back, lashing a hand towards the captive. She pushed back against the floor to rise but her elbow gave out and she slipped back down.

“Huxley,” Bentley warned, concerned, even as he turned back and cast another spell to fill out the net.

“I’m fine,” she allowed, gratefully taking the arm of another armored figure who reached down to assist her. Faris pulled her to her feet and retrieved her helm without a word. “I just bit my tongue,” Huxley told him.

“Put your helmet back on,” he instructed. Then he turned back to his team, Rydia and Jeffrey, who formed the other two points of the triangular net that bound the red swordsman. “How many more times can you cast this?”

“Not enough,” Rydia gritted, flipping her light hair out of her face. Her twin, Jeffrey, slipped as the net was jerked from one of his hands, and the other two fought with their captive for a few moments until he could cast it again.
Huxley threw her helm to the floor.

“What are you doing,” Bentley all but growled at her, barely giving her the slightest of glances this time.

“We’re almost there, right?” she shrugged. “I say let’s book it.” And without waiting for any corroboration, she took off at a flat sprint for the pinpoint of light that marked the way out.

----
-Steph

Kicking Down Shelves

2011-10-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! It's like, really super cold, hold on let me close a window.

Okay that'll be better. It was FREEZING in my house this morning, and then I open the door and it's absolutely 75 degrees outside. Pretty wonky. And as soon as the sun goes down, it's back to freezing. Booooo winter.

Been showing Beth around town. This morning we walked to K.D Donuts which is the best donut shop in town. Right on Telegraph near the YMCA. I haven't been there in forever. I always get a chocolate cake donut with chocolate frosting and chocolate jimmies because nowhere else makes 'em as good. I made Beth get a maple bar because I guess they don't have them on the East coast? And when she was there she couldn't find any, so she had to try ours.

Yesterday we went to the Maharaja, for the buffet. That place is so awkward, but the korma is sooo good it's totes worth it. And the buffet is only $7.95!!! Ugh you guys we have to go there all the time.

Um we window shopped downtown and went thrifting and had lunch at the Nature's Grill which is a cute little organic/vegetarian type place. I had a falafel pita which was actually in a pita pocket and had like three scoops of sprouts in it. Actually it was pretty good. I gotta try more of those downtown eateries.

Let's see, last...weekend I guess, we watched the first Star War with Carolyn because she's never seen the originals. Ugh, what, I know. And they're all out on Blu-Ray now, so now's as good a time as any. Before they come out in 3-D, right? lol. Gotta find time for the other two.

Still pretty busy at work, but that's good I guess. So I can afford things like a new fluorescent light hood for my fish tank. IT'S SO BRIGHT IN THERE NOW.

Um, Halloween is Monday, but what worries me is that November is Tuesday. I don't think I can muster up a novella this year for NaNoWriMo, guys. I'm just not prepared and I won't have half the free time that I did in years previous. I might give it a shot, or at least look back and do some editing, but there's no way I'm pulling out a whole 50k words this time around. I might just try to get some work done on finishing what I've started, though, how's that sound?

Well, best of luck all around~

-Steph

ps
oh yeah at work today I kicked down some shelves. Because it's time to get new shelves.

Typhlosion

2011-10-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I forgot that my keyboard's wireless, so I don't have to clear off my desk in order to use it!! Yaaaay.

Yesterday me and Beth explored downtown. I got this "pumpkin patch" soda from Rocket Fizz that tastes like Sunkist with some cinnamon Altoids thrown in. But we also got Jaffa Cakes from the British import store by the library, but the lady there is not too friendly. And I don't know what the consistency of Jaffa Cakes is supposed to be, but these were kinda crunchy.

We also went into that pawn shop by Rocket Fizz because it always has like banjos and mandolins in the window. But the window has all the cool stuff, and the rest is all, like, giant amps and surf equipment.

Um, and then Beth drove my car up to the cross and back, because I'm too afraids to drive up that road myself. It was foggy in the morning, but it had cleared up nice by then, so it was a pretty good view of everything. I was like that building is that and that over there is this. It was like Google Earth.

OH AND my sister just had a birthday! Now she supa old. Congrats!

Some bad movies I saw were Green Lantern and Perfect Score. I also watched Scott Pilgrim, for like the sixth time. It was very good.

I was about so say I've only had one day off since I last saw you, and that's why I don't have too many interesting stories, but that's not true. I had last Friday off, too, and me and Carolyn went to the Thai place by my work and had some good soup because I was still sick.

Speaking of, there's like a million Thai places in town. And I've only been to... four of them. There's also the new one downtown, and the Thai/Peru place and at least another on Main St. that we walked by. Yesterday I stir fried some spaghetti with some coconut milk/peanut butter for dinner just because of the over exposure.

Yep. Well that's about it! I'll see you again later.

-Steph

Summertime at last

2011-10-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! This morning it was like 85 degrees at 10 o'clock! FINALLY. I don't know about you guys, but I basically live my life for summer -- not for the school's out yay feeling of yesteryear, but for the weather. I can't stand this cold stuff, I need it to be hot out all day. But you may have noticed (probably because I keep telling you) that the summers here have been less than cooperative. But it's hot this week, so what more can I ask.

And you know what's a good summer time activity? Road trips. You know what the weather was like on ours? Pretty cold. So whatever. So what if we decided not to see the Grand Canyon because it was snowing and the low was going to be 19 degrees that night. Or that we didn't get to go into Joshua Tree because the roads were "flooded." :<

The funny thing is, though, that we survived the whole thing, and I got back to work on time and all that, but then we both got sick right after and we're still recovering from that. So much for coming back from vacation all refreshed.

Here's the highlights from my bank statement:
10/04 - Falafel King Boulder CO - $7.05
10/04 - Culver's Colorado Springs CO - $5.89
10/05 - Safeway Store Trinidad CO - $29.93
10/06 - Chevron Seligman AZ - $1.69
10/06 - Juanhijos Burit (the burrito counter next to the subway counter in the Chevron gift shop) Seligman AZ - $6.97
10/07 - Legends Classic Diner Glendora CA - $5.71

Why was a falafel pita so much!! Is my first response, actually. At the Safeway I bought a fruit bowl and a yogurt for breakfast, and some jerky and cheez-it for the road, and some pop tarts and some apples. They didn't confiscate my last apple at the border, but we did have to hand over the bag of bruised oranges the lady at Meteor City sent with us.

Well it sure was fun seeing the northern part of the southwest. Not quite as deserty as I had imagined. New Mexico started out positively Great Plainsy, that was definitely a place where the deer and the antelope play. Arizona had just as much non-desert, especially around Flagstaff where the mountains came down and there was just pine forest on either side of the highway for miles and miles and miles. California looked like California. There were Joshua trees everywhere except for Joshua Tree.

Driving through the major towns, though, was an experience. Here in SoCal, it's so normal to drive for two or three hours straight through city after suburb after city. When we first got into NM, we drove that long without seeing so much as a gas station. Santa Fe was a gift shop, and Albuquerquer came and went without much fuss. The towns in the desert are really more like hubs that the roads connect. Once we got into CA, it was almost obvious, it was just plain populated. Why is that? Literally one side of the Colorado River is a trailer park, and the other is a full fledged town.

It all seems like so long ago. I guess that's what 8 hour work days will do to ya. I wish I had better pictures, but when I pulled out my camera in Golden, CO, the battery was nearly dead. :< It must have turned itself on on the plane or something, so I ended up just using my camera phone. Which was alright, but rather limited. I just put some pics up on Facebook, you can see a lot of the same picture over and over. Road, a low row of mountains to the north, desert to the south, clouds straight ahead but never above. It was like we never moved at all.

-Steph

Two Hours There, Four Days Back

2011-10-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I'm typing on my phone, so even though there's plenty to tell you about, this is probably going to be a little short.

Right now me and Beth are sitting in a motel in Needles, California. This morning we left a motel 6 in Winslow, Arizona, and the morning before that we were in an RV park in Trinidad, Colorado. And that day we started out up around Denver. Tomorrow we'll be home in Ventura.

Weather's been crazy. Most of the places we've been, it's been sunny and hot, but then it'll have a freezing wind. Up in Boulder it rained in the sun, which was awesome. But after that, it's just been raining everywhere except where we are. Like if we're on Tue highway, the clouds are all stuck up in the mountains all around, but above us is all clear.

But there was definitely snow up on the mountain leading to the Grand Canyon, so unfortunately we decided to skip it this time. :<

So on Tuesday we saw my brother and the kids, who are super tall. Yesterday we drove through the prairie and saw antelope. Today we stopped at Meteor City, looked at the grand canyon caverns gift shop, drove up a mountain to see a ghost town, saw some coyote, and I fed a wild burro ice cream.

We also watched an episode of Smallvile this morning. Oops.

So it's an adventure! I'll show you the pictures next time.

-Steph

Ps
Albuquracker Tracker. Oakaykes. What the helk. Antelope! Gusting winds may exist.

Adventure On

2011-09-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

HAPPY THURSDAY. Things are pretty different these days, who knows what's going to happen next. But totally cool for next week, though. !! I finally get some time offffff and you know what I'm going to do with it!!!!!

Just bought a ticket to fly out to Denver, where I'mma pick up Beth, swing by say hello to my bro, and see the Grand Canyon for the first time in my adult life! AKA, Beth is moving in! And then we can work out real life from there.

I've just begun a very informal, from scratch education in the field of information technology. I'm thinking, if I put the time in, and focus, I could probably do that. I mean, career-wise. I just have to learn it all first. And I can do that, right?

So has anyone seen any new show they like this season so far? I watched the pilots of New Girl and Person of Interest, and while the first one was rather expectation-fulfilling, the second was pretty underwhelming. I really want to see Michael Emerson in something again, but it's certainly not this. Oh, I also skimmed through Playboy Club for Sean Maher, but that was suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper boring and I won't be back.

HIMYM is still making me believe that Robin is the bride. I won't be persuaded otherwise. And the OFFICE, Andy is manager, just like I thought! At least, I think that's what I thought. You'll have to go back a few months to quote me. But he's doing a great job and that's all I needed to see.

Um yesterday me and Carolyn discovered a real cute part of Oxnard where there was a theater and, like, civilization, and we saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I guess it was pretty good, but the best part was the theater. It was the middle of the day, but the ticket was only a buck 25 more than the early bird price at the regular theater, there was NOBODY there, and we thought we were going to have the theater to ourselves until one guy walked in right before the previews started. The seating was pretty intense stadium, and the seats were all very plush and newish feeling. It was sort of surreal. I'll show you some time.

I also saw this today, and I laughed so much.

-Steph

Goin to the fair

2011-09-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I'm sooo tired. Ready to go to sleep like, this very moment. Just watch me.

I've never been to the LA County Fair, but for some reason I thought, this year is the year. Then I thought I wouldn't have time, but then Carolyn asked when my next day off was and if I wanted to go?

So that was our today. Geez, that place is huge. Probably could fit our fair in there like three times. They had way more places to buy stuff, but it was mostly the same stuff over and over again. They didn't seem to have any community stuff, like stuff you get ribbons for, but they did have dinosaurs.

I pet like more goats than I ever dreamed I would pet. I didn't get to pet the donkey or the mule, which was sad. We didn't pay the one dollar to see the "is this the world's smallest horse (not a pony)" because the space was so small it probably was fake or dead. There was an albino wallaby, WHERE'S MY ALBINO WALLABY, VENTURA COUNTY FAIR?? just hanging out in a fenced off area. There were sharks.

Ummmm we each bought a fifteen dollar chicken kabob+fries+drink. The only other fair thing I ate was a strawberry/banana/nutella crepe. $8.50.

The kids building was also a science building, and had the only things that got ribbons, which was kids' art. There was some funny stuff like ours, like a MSPaint dog in a vortex; some great stuff like Batman Beyond Batman and Jim Morrison; some inexplicable stuff like a display case labeled "Scientists" full of sock people dressed up with badly cut felt pieces and yarn to look like Benjamin Franklin, Mrs. Frizzle, and a "Mars Robot Princess" which looked much more like Stephen Hawking.

But the best part of the science room was when Carolyn did a double take and said, "that cake is a lie." And sure enough, in the "science kitchen" there was a chocolate-flaked cake with cherries on top. We were torn as to whether it was on purpose, or, perhaps, maybe that's just what cakes look like? Until we made it to the other side of the room, where, right in front of our eyes, was a wall with an orange portal cut into the side, a Companion Cube sitting nearby. So that was pretty awesome.

The other cool thing was a Native American hoop dance that we saw in a "wild west show." Oh, here he is on the internet. Probably worth the price of sitting through the rest of the show.

So let's see, Pros: accessibility of goats. Cons: Huge. I think I just need to go to more fairs and see what they're really all about.

Since I actually had two days off this week, I spent the other one watch Lion King in theaters. I don't think I actually saw it on the big screen the first time, so it was very exciting. There were only like, ten other people in there, maybe half of that was kids. The colors were very sharp and the lions were very big. It's still one of my favorite movies of all time.

It was also my dad's birthday on Tuesday! Happy birthday, buddy! We went to Outback and it smells real good in there. I downloaded this whole program, The Mechanical Universe, which I watched on laserdisc back in high school physics. My dad really likes all that stuff, and I'm more than a little interested in it, so that's gonna be something we can watch together some time. It's from 1985, though, so it's also pretty funny.

Well I'm going to go never walk again for a little while. See you next time!

-Steph

Routine

2011-09-15T22:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Are you ready for falltime? Because it's really here. It even rained for a moment over the weekend.

I tried the salted caramel mocha at Starbucks today, and it was pretty good. I don't know what I was expecting, but it didn't taste caramelly like I was thinking it would. It was more complex than that. It did have a few bits of what seemed to be straight up salt, but I dig that in my sweet things, so over all I quite liked it.

Things at work are still pretty crazy busy, I'm in the middle of another six-day week. I achieved greatness on Monday, which was intense, but the rest of the week has not been as spectacular. Gonna keep trying.

Got a haircut today. It's still a little too long so I don't know what I'm going to do about that. The place I go to is "under new management," they've still got the sign up since the last time I went, which was probably like six months ago. The girl who cut mine today was new to me, and she didn't seem to grasp what I meant when I said my motto was "it can't be short enough." At least it looks decent and well behaved now.

I still feel like all I've been doing is working and sleeping. Maybe next week you'll get a more interesting update.

-Steph

Terra

2011-09-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I could have sworn I had a snappy title for this one, but I forgotted it. Whoops.

So, to emphasize my weather/weather response dilemma, today was like the third or fourth day in the high 70s/80s, and I got a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks. I remembered today that when I was working at Vons, I had to crank up the AC right away just to be able to touch the steering wheel without burning my finger prints off. These last three summers, including this one, I don't think that's ever been necessary.

Global warming is somehow to blame, I'm sure of it.

I haven't been able to fully enjoy this late blooming summer because I've been cooped up at work all day. Which isn't actually too bad, because this is a crazy good amount of hours. But it's really hectic and bizarre, we're having to think about a million new things at once. When I'm done I just sort of want to huddle in a corner by myself for a while.

I mean, drop by! We'd love to see you.

So you may have heard about my disk errors? Fixed it by going to Fry's and picking up at 2TB Barracuda for like 70 bucks. Got it running Windows 7 -- goodbyyyyyye Vista! Also picked up a wireless keyboard that has a trackpad, which is pretty sweet. Just noticed today, though, that there's no light for capslock, which is sort of inexplicable. Trial and error, then.

Thanks, Dad, for my new set up!

I've been eating home made falafel pitas all week. Over the weekend I made some hummus, and then on Monday I think I had a go at falafels. They turned out pretty good. In the pita with the hummus and tzatziki and tahini and all that they were kinda overpowered, but the combined flavor attack was spectacular. Have I ever told you how easy tzatziki is to make? Here it is:

Two cup jug of Greek yogurt
three cloves garlic, minced
half an English cucumber, peeled, minced
squeezings from half a lemon
1 TB olive oil

stir. eat that now. it's so good. put it on everything. I mean, I did it like that just from memory, and it's just, exactly right. Try it and see. I recommend a slap chop or similar device for the garlic and cucumber.

The hummus and falafel need a little perfecting, but these are things I'm perfectly willing to make over and over. Like cakes.

Speaking of, almost, we've got a pumpkin growing in the backyard. It was a mystery vine, but now it is oh-so definitely a pump-pumpking. Still green, just a dusting of yellow across the top. I can't wait until I get to rip him open and turn his insides into good eats. There don't seem to be any others growing on that vine, but it keeps putting out flowers so hopefully some more will take. At the rate they grow, it'll keep me in pumpkins through the holiday season. There's also two or three more sproutlings coming up where we dumped the compost out, so maybe those will turn out to be pumpkins, too.

Well, I'm off to watch a movie and/or youtube. Peace off!

-Steph

PS my "new" computer's name is Terra. For terabyte.

Cold Calling

2011-09-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Summer is over -- when did it ever start? -- now that September is here with its fog and its school and its falltime colors. I feel like I've been waiting for a real summer for three years, and now that it's September, I'm going to have wait out yet another. But remember how November was the hottest month of the year in 2010? Maybe we'll get a repeat of that.

But it's a sad thing when the weather does get really hot, and I'm just reminded of spiced things and lemon things and Thanksgiving and pies and stuff. That's not how it should be.

In unrelated news, it's amazing how dirty your hands DON'T get at work when instead of handling movies you sit around and try to figure out how to sell Dish Network to folks. Do you want to see a demo? You should come in the store. Get some satellite tv up in your place.

I cold called about three dozen people, which I was not initially very excited about doing. But it turned out I liked talking to the actual people much more than leaving a message. Talking to the people made sense and wasn't stressful. So that was new.

Yesterday me and Carolyn had an adventure. There's a botanical garden up in Montecito called LotusLand, which is like a poor man's Huntington. It was pretty cool, though, we got in for free as the tour coordinator's guests, because Carolyn has connections. We toured with four or five little old ladies and an almost little old man. It was nice to wander around and look at gardens and strange trees and stuff, and there was a huge cactus bowl garden where all you could see was cactus alllll around.

We also finished another anime! It's called Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and it's crazy. I guess you could see it if you have the time, since it does have some interesting stuff I've never seen an anime do before. But it was also pretty weird and sometimes dumb.

I need to buy a new hard drive for my computer. Although I just looked and none of the "your disk has an error!!" windows is up right now. But I guess I'll just get a new one anyway 'cause you can get a huge drive for a reasonable price, and then basically I could just use that forever or until it fails, and just keep upgrading the computer components instead of getting a new one ever. Yeah?

Well. I'm going to go do something brainless. That sounds good right about now.

-Steph

300

2011-08-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Blogger is telling me this is my 300th post. Congrats, I guess! That's ridic.

So we still have like a whole bag of baos in the fridge. It's kind of crazy. But I got distracted from eating them because I made dinner on Monday, so we've been working through that, too.

I'll make it for you sometime, it's just a sweet potato and a package of squash and some mushrooms and craisins and apples and cashews all cooked together with some cinnamon and stuff like that. I really liked it, haha.

Finished my castle boat, named her Olivia Victoria. The ship motto is "Semper Est Victoria In Pace." On one of the days when I was mad at wall-building, I swam ashore and constructed a covered wagon. So now I'm putting in a little trading camp next to it, like a place for people to trade with the ship. Minecraft can be so cute sometimes.

Facebook informed me that Rocket Fizz had a new flavor of soda called "sweet corn," so I took Carolyn down there to get one today. It tasted remarkably like corn! Like if you opened a can of corn and started eating it, except it was a soda. I do love me some sweet corn, so it was pretty amazing.

We also went to Green Forest and I had some pretty amazing strawberry yogurt, and later we went to Toki and I had a pretty good ramen salad. It was just a good food type day, I guess.

Weather, too, it was at least 70 before the breezes started up. I forgot that the real nice weather starts up again with the school year. Because basically I was waiting all summer for a nice week like this. Yesterday I was laying out with Donnie, but I was too busy reading to pet him so he bit me for my negligence.

Happy 300, peeps.

-Steph

A Million Baos

2011-08-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Gotta be at work in an hour so I'mma shoot this out there.

Fair's over! I just got my check today for my winnings-- five WHOLE dollars. That was for a second and third place poems. I didn't get to pick up my ribbons because the pick up times matched my shift that day exactly. I don't know what to do with ribbons, anyhow.

I think next year I'll be happy going just the once. I ate all the fair food, which was not as dream-fulfilling as it promised. The Beach Boys was fun, though, so I'll probably pick a day when someone cool is playing, and maybe go opening day when it's a dollar.

On Tuesday morning me and my dad went to go see Captain America finally. I lost my ticket stub, though :< It was pretty good. I like the sets and the scenery, and Chris Evans lived up to expectations. Gonna have to see him in the Avengers though, to get the whole picture.

Yesterday Steven, Carolyn, and Austin came over and we cooked for a forever. Coconut milk waffles, which we made once prior...maybe over the weekend that I forgot already? And then regular baos and curry baos that we could only steam five at a time. After we were done eating all we could eat, and plates were sent home with people, there were still 30 left. Come over and try one! They're good!

We watched Hairspray, which I haven't seen in a while, and it was a good laugh for everyone. But on Batman (1966) right after, but then people started leaving. I need to own more comedies. Do you know where I can find Scott Pilgrim on blu-ray for under $20?

(It's funny to me that Chris Evans and Brandon Routh are in Scott Pilgrim, and they are also Captain America and Superman.)

Oh yeah we also watched Orphan on the first waffle day -- it must have been Friday -- which was pretty good and weird. Me and my folks watched The Conspirator, and it was like watching an essay.

I'm nearly finished with my boat castle in Minecraft. Working on the wall now, and it's turning out like I expected. That's one of the things I'm consistently amazed by, in this game, is when you think of something, and then build it, and when you're done it's exactly what you had in mind. I guess I mean as opposed to, say, painting, where maybe you're not exactly able to get the image from your brain onto paper.

Alrighty, off I go.

-Steph

Episodes

2011-08-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Another early one this week because closing on Thursdays seems to be my shift now. So exciting.

I did end up getting the "season pass" to the fair, so I've been four times now. For $30, it ended up paying for itself right there. BUT I also went to see the Beach Boys on Tuesday night. Thirty bucks for a concert is also a good deal. Any way you want to look at it, I think I won this year.

Except for I had plenty of opportunities to eat the fair foods I'd never gotten around to, so you might want to count that as a loss. :< so much funnel cake.

The Beach Boys! Two of them are still the same, and one of the others I saw in person at a pirate bar when I saw fake the Beatles. They were pretty awesome, especially since they sounded like the Beach Boys. And Mike Love, after like fifteen minutes, was all "we're going to take an intermission...followed by a nap." lol oldies.

This week I randomly caught up on the new Starz season of Torchwood. Since the last season had a special name (Children of Earth) and this one does (Miracle Day), I thought it was going to be a six episode thing, too. But it's a full season! There's a new episode tomorrow, but I'll probably just wait a few more weeks and watch them all at once again. I've been spoiled by the internet and dvds, I don't want to bother with real-time tv anymore.

Case in point, I watched season...five? of Dexter yesterday. It's coming out on dvd next week and we got it in yesterday. Luckily I'd already seen the first three, but the other 9 I smashed out over the afternoon. I liked the season end, but the first half of the season seemed a little lackluster. But that's another one under my belt.

I actually turned on the tv the other day, just out of curiosity. But it was like 8 on a Sunday or something, so I flipped through the guide and then turned it back off. I'm definitely not someone who just watches tv for tvs sake. That's what Youtube is for.

Although if I do find myself with a spare half hour in the mornings, I do usually end up watching Supernatural. :/ It's dumb, but I feel like I need to know what I'm missing. I know I'm not missing, well, anything... but I still have to know, you know?

Caught the first showing of Harry Potter today, just to have something to do. It was pretty dark and enough like the book as I remember. So that's all over. How sad.

Well I guess I better go find some noms and then it's off to work for me. Catch ya next week.

-Steph

Pepito: A Remembrance

2011-08-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! The fair's on! I won a second and a third for two poems, but nothing for the lemon. :< The one that won "funny shaped" was just a huge monster that wasn't funnier shaped than the other entries. Just larger. There goes my winning streak.

So remember September 09 when I got a fish tank and then one of this fish I bought had fish babies? Remember how one of them survived by hiding in the fake plant? Remember how there were like five more living in the filter? Remember how I took out the tank divider too early and all the filter fish got eaten? And Pepito the plant-lurker was the only one who made it?

Well he got sick and died. He was a bad hat, but he will be missed.

But me and Carolyn went to the fair yesterday and looked at evvvverything. We spent like five hours there. I had udon and a corndog and spiral fries and a gingerbread cake and kettle corn. Laughed at all the kids art, tried to pet a donkey, wandered through the gardens, looked at all the collections of rocks and pokemon cards. It was super full of people, but seemed less full of exhibits.

The rabbits cages were full of chickens and/or empty. There was a butterfly cage instead of kaleidoscopes. The giant model train town was only a half a track.

But it was cool. Full of sawdust and children's screams. OH we looked at giant snakes!

It was Beth's birthday on Monday! Happy birthday, buddy! I got her Minecraft and then we built a giant guitar for her to live in. :>

-Steph

Bassy McBasserton

2011-07-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Weather's been nice here, how's yours? I wish I would have spent more time outside, though. Went for a bit of a walk today, but that's the first time in ever. I'll try harder.

Hung out at Green Forest today with Jacqi, having blended drinks and looking at craigslist. Should probably be doing that more often, too. Hanging out with Jacqi, I mean.

I told you I rewatched Scott Pilgrim a couple weeks ago. Since then I've jumped back into bass quite enthusiastically. Learned the bass part to that Metric song that the Clash at Demonhead plays in the movie. Gonna work on a Doors song next. It's a little tough because I haven't played in so long, and my hands are unstretchy and weak right now. But we're working on it.

Been playing guitar regularly for a couple weeks now, too, and my callouses are just about to come in properly. I got my basic chords down almost perfect, but we're working on that, too. My strategy is to learn specific songs rather than just chords out of the blue, because then if they have a chord I don't know, I'll have to learn it in context with other chords and I think that will help me better in the long run rather than just trying to get them down by rote.

It's amazing how much muscle memory plays into this. That's how I learn, too. Hand-learning, not head-learning. So the key is practice, practice, practice.

Started a workout regimen that I've followed the entirety of this week. Two miles in a half an hour and then some free weights. Gonna be Clark Kent for Halloween, so I gotta get ready.

Got a couple hours added onto work this week, so that's nice. Gotta get ready to go pretty soon. Decided I'd bang this out now instead of when I get back just in case I go on another adventure like that one time. Turns out they're just paving the shoulders?? I don't know if that means they'll be doing the actual lanes coming up, or if they're just going to leave it at that.

Oh yeah, I also entered some stuff in the fair. Same 77 year old guy as last time. So look out for those, they're all poems this year. Thinking about entering a pie or something, and of course a funny shaped lemon. Also thinking about getting a "season pass" which is only $30, less than the price of three individual days. And I love the fair, so I think that'll turn out to be a mighty fine deal.

See you guys later.

-Steph

Geek

2011-07-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Do you know what kind of Thursday it is? It's a BLACKJACK THURSDAY. I don't think we've had one of those in years. And I wouldn't have noticed except for I was looking up movie times yesterday. What did you do to celebrate Thursday the 21st? I didn't do much, I only got dressed to walk to CVS, and then I put pajamas back on. =/

Since last week, I tracked down and subsequently watched Superman III, Superman IV, Superman Returns, and Superman: Brainiac Attacks!. From best to worst they were: Superman Returns, Superman IV, um, and the other two tie for worst ever.

I guess I'll have to go back to Salzer's and rent the Donner cut of II, though, and then I can tell you which one's my favorite. (But it's going to be I or II).

But then I also watched Megamind, which is about superheroes/villains, and then Dylan Dog and Scott Pilgrim, which are both comic book movies. (You may also notice the Brandon Routh theme in the last two as well) Well I guess I just like comic book movies.

But I still need to see Thor and the Green Lantern and Captain America's coming out tonight. Not enough time for all this. Too busy Minecrafting.

I mean working. Today is my only day off this week! $$

Been listening to a lot of John Williams and Mumford & Sons. Played some guitar today. I even tuned up the ol' bass and tried to remember what to do with it after that. I forgot there was a bass battle in Scott Pilgrim, and that was cool. I want to say "I forgot how much I love bass," but that's something that's impossible to forget so I'll skip it.

I guess Comic Con's going on right now. Maybe one day I'll make it down there. =/

Earlier this week it was very warm and sunny and almost very much like summer, but now it's gone all misty and gray again. I just...what is this I don't even

Well. I've rambled on enough. Not really feeling it today. Maybe something cool will happen this week.

-Steph

Late oClock

2011-07-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I would have been here like fifteen minutes ago, but it seems like they're paving the whole world these days, and my exit was closed off and I had to go halfway to downtown and then circle back on surface streets. I was in so much of a hurry once I got here that I almost didn't stop to wash my hands--but then I noticed that they were literally streaked with a blue-black...ness, so sanitation won out in the end.

Speaking of, I got some new wart removy pads for my mystery wart (for those of you who don't know, I started the summer after high school with at least three on each hand, which is like, I don't even know how that happened) and they're very much more effective than the ones from six years ago. That is to say, I've put two on, about 30 hours each with a day in between, and now I have to wait for my disc of skin around the wart to grow back before I can put on another.

Don't be ashamed of warts, just informed! They are spreadable! So don't go touching people with it if they're not okay with that! I broke out with them due to stress, since I'd had the first one as long as I could remember (no one ever told me it was a wart). But if you pick at them and medicate them, your immune system will kick in and get rid of it for you. They're sorta gross, but they have no nerve endings on the surface so they're not too much of a bother if you don't care either way.

That's my public service announcement for the day.

Gee. Now I don't know what else to say, with this deadline of about thirteen minutes and all. I picked up the first two original Superman movies the other day on a whim, and aren't they just the cutest. Nobody in town has III, which is evidently because it's the best and I shouldn't bother with the fourth. But I will, because I'm a dork like that.

OH Sorry, Facebook, for spamming these over the last week. For some reason a backlog of about a month and a half of blogs were never imported. And I wanted to tag everybody in the AX review, so I had to get all the others in first. Hopefully this will import quickly, or at least ever. If not, I'll just have to do it myself in a couple of days.

Speaking of hooray!technology, Windows update restarted my computer in the middle of the night again and BROKE everything. Firefox, MSN messenger, Hamachi, WMP. It deleted some .dll that is normally in some specific folder AND and less specific folder, so it took like two hours of more and more furious google searches (in IE) to find the fix. And even then Hamachi wouldn't work, so that had to be deleted and reinstalled. Before I could start up my Minecraft server and see if that had been broken...which it wasn't! And then me and Carolyn went exploring and found all the secrets.

Ok, have a lovely.

-Steph

Oh, and I sat through Transformers 3, and was terribly terribly bored.

AX 2011: a look back

2011-07-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Before we get into the good stuff, happy Thursday birthday to Ringo! 71 today! Here's to 71 more!

So this Anime Expo was full of ups and downs. Some would say it evened out, but it's the AX so it still was amazing. Let's start.

Early Friday morning I arrived at Carolyn's to help finish the costumes! They'd been up most of the night working on them... and we mostly got them done before we headed off to Rina's. Steven's a better driver than last year! Then we headed down to LA.

We got there quick enough, and got into our room rather more quickly.... but it wasn't the upper floor room that has access to the free food! Seems as though the AX is still as unorganized as ever, and out of the three different prices they quoted to Carolyn, what they ended up charging was something else entirely! But it was a junior suite and we had two bathrooms, and there was still plenty of room for the eleven of us. ^_~

Carolyn got to work hot-gluing the last of it together, while me, Steven, and Rina wandered around downtown looking for more glue sticks and a box. We went to Ralph's, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and a mini Staples, and we did find a box.

When Minecraft happened, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to be a Creeper for the AX. That faded, but after a while we did find some Creeper cosplayers and said, well, it can't be that hard. THEN Pokemon came along, and everything went crazy. So my cosplay was as Red, the original trainer from the first series games. With a Creeper head. Carolyn and Steven went full-box cosplay, dressing up their characters like Team Rocket, which is something you can actually do in Minecraft. Steven got a Creeper head, and Carolyn used Israphel from the Yogscast youtube videos, so she's actually got three cosplays in one. Rina put together a Professor Oak costume together, and her sister grabbed a Charmander. The last box we found was for Rina, so she could fit in to our Creeper family.

What I liked the most about mine was that I had the box head on -- which was great on its own, having a masked costume really frees you up -- but I could leave it at the hotel and still have a complete cosplay. Secondarily, I loved having a backpack full of supplies, and I never had to take it off, just order people to get this out or put that in. :3 Thirdly, I loved having regular clothes, so I could wander around downtown or even back and forth from the hotel without being too hot or uncomfortable.

What I liked the most about our group cosplay was the smiles we brought to the faces of those who recognized it instantly. Pokemon AND Minecraft. One one else but us! Plenty of people in box heads, and plenty of both Pokemon and Ashes running around, but we had this complete anomaly thing going on, drawing in stares from everyone, whether they recognized one, or the other, or both, or none. (Believe it or not, but there was a guy who recognized the Minecraft side, but didn't know what the Pokeball was). We got to hiss at a lot of folks, stare at them as they passed, and everyone wanted a picture WITH us, which hardly ever happens.

Since the boxes proved to be rather impossible to travel in, our game plan was to pack up the legs and stuff into the main box, walk it all down to the expo, assemble, and then traverse down the hallway to the exhibit hall in costume. I generally wore my head there and back because it was easier than carrying it. Then just to get across the convention center, it probably took half an hour each time. Shuffling along and then stopping for pictures every three feet. That's my favorite. ^^

So we cosplayed down to the exhibit hall lobby and back (except for that one time where it was blocked off at the end for the "bomb threat"), because it would have been impossible to get those costumes through the exhibit hall aisles and crowds. So that's another trip to the hotel and back each day. Exhibit hall was super crowded the first day, and carpeted, which was new. I haven't really seen any new anime in a couple of years, so it was hard to be super interested in the wares. But I did finally buy the Cactuar plushie I've had my eye on for a while. In years past, its always either been like 40 bucks or sold out. I got mine for $20.

But the exhibit hall hasn't been my focus since we started cosplaying seriously and going for more than one day at a time. I love cosplayers! But again, since I haven't been keeping up on anything other than Naruto, I didn't see too many people who wowed me. It was more like there was just the same cosplays as ever, and I didn't need their picture because there were fifteen more of them around every corner. So I ended up mainly taking pictures of Pokemon, because, hey, I gotta catch 'em all.

We forgot to watch any new anime, too. Last year we watched ICE, which was horrendous, and Ninja Nonsense, which was amazing. (But I made up for that this week, because I just watched all of Durarara!! in the last two days. WATCH IT IT'S SO AMAZING WHY DIDN'T I WATCH IT A YEAR AGO) We saw some of the AMVs, but some of those were the same as last year, and the rest weren't outstanding. We waited in the standby line for the Masquerade, so at least it was free, but the cosplay and the skits were pretty bad here, too. So those are a couple of the "downs" of this year.

Oh, we also managed to get into the Hatsune Miku concert, who is a computer-based pop star I'd never heard of before. The singing is all this software, and she was a hologram prancing around on stage. The audience was IN LOVE. I.... liked the glow sticks.

The funniest thing that happened was this little boy who asked me if I had a knife. His mom had told him that we were Team Rocket Minecraft, and so I told him that they were, but I was a good guy. This was in the street, so Steven and Carolyn weren't even in their costumes. But I was. He said "do you have a knife?" and I put my face closer to see if I could hear him correctly, and he backed up a step lol. No, did I have a bat? I thought he said "hat," so I said "...yes?!"

"What can I use to fight those bad evil people?!" he asked with much seven year old angst. Apparently he'd been raised in a household were it was common -- nay, expected that upon meeting Team Rocket, for one to knife them.

I told him not to attack bad people, but to report them to his local police officer. "Nurse-- Officer Jenny" I managed at last.

His mom finally coaxed him away, and I said, "Have fun!"

And as he skipped away, towards the convention center, he said in quite a gleeful voice, "What a FRIENDLY Creeper!!"

XD

My other favorite quotes of the AX:

*Steven and I are sitting there with our Creeper heads on*
Steven: You're quite handsome.

*Alex asks if the ground is sloping, which it is*
Rina: I don't know. I don't have a level.

*The morning is bright so Carolyn asks Steven to punch the sun. He tries and fails*
Steven: I can't reach.

*Some cosplayer at the Masquerade is taking off parts of his/her costume*
Me: Oh no, your hat! Oh no, your...thing!

Kid on the street: Do you have a knife?

And our collective motto: ADVENTURE ON, (name here)!!!

Oh, another high point was during the intermission of the Masquerade, things were so disorganized that we all ended up watching Youtube on the MC's iPhone.

Oh, they also tore out our food court, which was the source of equal joy and despair in years previous. It was a creepy three stories into the ground, the bottom level hosting a semi-deserted food court with three or four intermittently shut down eateries. All gone, our beloved AX hangout. Shocking.

So we spent a lot of time walking back and forth, walking to find new foods, sitting in lines, and sitting in event rooms. Seems that between all this, somehow, we hardly spent any time at either the convention or the hotel room. But we were always back so late, and woke up rather early (for us) so I don't know where the time went. It was also a shortish AX altogether, since on the last day we just packed up and went home, instead of scouring the exhibit hall for last minute deals like we regularly do.

So that was my... 11th Anime Expo, twelve years since my first time. Hahaha, that's half my life so far. I was a tiny 12 year old, between 7th and 8th grade, and I cut my hair short to cosplay as Omi from Weiss Kreuz. I know it was that year because our 8th grade graduation/dance photo has me with the longest hair I've had since I cut it short the first time, and every summer after that it's been as short as it is now. That was so long ago--I remember searching fansites on my dad's computer for Weiss songs, and letting them load in the browser-based WMP for like two hours just for one four minute song. Those were the DAYS.

Oh man, I found it on Youtube, and just listening to it reminds me of all the stuff I was into back then, like reading those FFVIII fanfics that don't exist anymore. And if you ever wondered why I go by "Aya" or Ayan on the internet, you have Weiss to thank for that.

It's good, getting back to ones roots. Another year, another experience. How different will next year be!

-Steph

Gotta Mine 'Em All

2011-06-30T22:41:00.001-07:00

Happy Thursday! I think someone should make a PokeRap about all the different ores in Minecraft. Internet, get on this.

So tomorrow we're headed off into the wild wonder of the Anime Expo! It's that time of year again, and even though I tried to get a head start on my costume a while back, today still found me painting and sewing my lil' heart out.

Although, to be fair, I only utilized the sewing machine twice, and both times it was for using binding as an easy hem. Quite a bit of spray paint, though! My shirt/vest is like, solid now.

Want some progress pictures?

Ok I still gotta pack. And get up sooooo early. But it's gonna be great. It's gonna be really hot and summery and I'll have a box on my head. Gonna take every picture. Gonna buy some snacks. I'll have a backpack to carry stuff in. I can't wait.

The nice things about this cosplay, in addition to the backpack, are: they are regular clothes, so I won't be having to change into something more comfortable; no weapons to check; no props in my hands; pockets; no one else will be dressed like me.

I'm going as the original Pokemon trainer with the head of a Creeper from Minecraft. Carolyn and Steven are going as box-form Minecraft players painted like Team Rocket.

We're gonna be awesome.

-Steph

Triple Play Thursday

2011-06-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! 100.3 The Sound (of southern california) plays three songs in a row by the same band. One up on 2-for Tuesday that KLOS and KTYDE have. So on the way to work we had a Stones set, and another one for my lunch! Good timing. And on the way home it was Cream, The Turtles, and the Beatles in that order. 10 at 10, by that time, ten songs from the same year. 1967 today.

But the rest of the day I was either clothes shopping or at work :< Happy Thursday.

But my sister's in town for the week! When she descends, we shop. I mean, I love it when she's here.

An anecdote:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
She has put something in her hair to bring out the blonde (which is already is). I said to her, "Your hair is so golden," and "Like a princess!"

I once wrote a story about a princess as tall as she was kind, just fyi. For true.

But speaking of princesses, I started reading Game of Thrones. I'm trying to "read my eyes out" like Anne McCaffrey allegedly did. I was disinclined to like it based on the writing style in the prologue, but now I'm like a quarter of the way through with no intention of stopping.

My next day off is the Anime Expo. Counting down the days.

Ok. I'mma go sleep or read or both at once!

-Steph

Everything smells better in the rain

2011-06-16T21:39:00.001-07:00

Happy Thursday! Welcome, June, aka the Cold and Spooky Rain month. Any more of this winter nonsense and I'm going to demand a refund.

But the single pine tree and all the juniper on the way to Lowe's smelled sooo good.

Happy Captain Picard Day, while we're at it.

The AX is only two weeks away. They're still out of the spray paint I need to finish my vest. I still need to acquire shoes to paint, and I still need to paint my box head. I've got my eye out for a yellow backpack, but that's not strictly necessary.

Me and Carolyn went to Walmart, Joann's (which is actually called Jo-Ann), Sport-Smart, Ross, back to Walmart, Target, Claire's, Payless, Sears, Justice, and Old Navy looking for costume pieces today. I found some binding (at Joanns, which is what I went there for) and Carolyn found a hat at Ross. It needs to be spray painted.

But it'll all get done, and it will all be amazing, I promise.

Then we hung out with Jacqi at Green Forest, which is still a place to which you need to go. I tried the frozen yogurt today, and it was pretty darn good. I don't even like frozen yogurt. They also have waffles now, so go ask for one. It's between the CVS and Vons by Buena.

Just watched The Adjustment Bureau. It's cool. I didn't love it.

People always seem put off when I haven't seen any of the new releases, especially the one they already think is cool and are asking me about it for no reason at all. But I'll tell you why I don't. Because most movies disappoint me. Most movies I don't care about. It has to be real special for me to even be interested in seeing it, like Adjustment Bureau, what with its Matt Damon and its sci-fi. But even then, if I don't love it -- love the story, love the setting, love the characters, love the humor -- then I'm going to be disappointed.

Long story short, I hate watching movies that I don't love. This is why I only watch things I've already seen and love (Lucky # Slevin, High School Musical, Hot Fuzz, Sunshine, Open Season 2, Speed Racer) or movies I can get angry about how bad they are. Because then at least I'm engaged, through my disgust. If it's neither here nor there, I won't remember it, and, well, wasn't that a good two hours wasted.

:/

In Bruges, The Prestige, The Incredibles, Batman (1966), A Hard Day's Night, Shaun of the Dead, The Lion King, Iron Man, House of Flying Daggers, Casino Royale, Stranger Than Fiction, Ocean's 11, Casablanca, Donnie Darko, Boondock Saints, Akira, The Fall, Serenity, these are the movies I will recommend for you over whatever might have just come out yesterday. I want to say that these are better than those, but nobody knows that movie choice is only a matter of taste better than I do. So if you want to see Just Go With It, you don't have to ask me for my opinion.

Just get out. XD

Also, look at how they're either action movies or kids movies? I don't know. Preferably, I like a good sci-fi/action/comedy/drama aka Firefly. Oh man, don't get me started on tv shows.

-Steph

June Gloom

2011-06-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! So summer has rolled in with its full force chilly overcastness. It even rained some. Summers have been dark and downright cold the two or so I've experienced since I came back. I don't remember them being like this when I was little, so I'm going to blame Global Warming?

Well, I do remember summer mornings being cloudy, and then the afternoons would be sunny after summer school got out. But it wasn't really cold. Not like this nearly-50-degrees of yesterday. It should be 80 and 90 like last November was. Why can't you do it right, Ventura??

Started running in the mornings. 2+ miles. Gonna see if I can get fit!

Some of the sunflowers I planted last week have sprouted. And there's a whole mess of little sproutlings in the back by the plum tree? They might be weeds but there's so many of them I get the feeling they were sown by humankind. However, on the other hand, there are a few viney melon types popping up in the near vicinity, and I'm sure those came to be all on their own. I don't remember what we might have thrown out there. Watermelon? Pumpkin? It'll be a fun surprise.

Let's see, Steven's home for a week of summer vacation. I was invited to go with them to a cool restaurant on Sunday to have good lobster. And yesterday we hung out and watched Shaolin starring my favorite Andy Lau. And today me and Carolyn got some boxes to start our AX stuff, which will be epic. Just you wait.

Oh I made a good dinner the other day. Salmon and a Trader Joe's grains mix and a fruit/microgreens salad. The theme was apricots. I watched two straight hours of Food Network the day previous.

I would like to go to the South and eat every food. I will even go to Paula Deen's house if I have to.

That's srs bsns.

-Steph

Dance Party

2011-06-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! The Playstation Network is back up, so I've just spent this entire evening on it having a dance party with strangers. Oh, the internet. How beautiful you are.

Did a lot of other exciting things this week, too. On Memorial Day 100.3 the Sound was wrapping up their top 100 best rock albums of all time countdown, as in on my way to work at 10 in the morning they were at 21 (Rubber Soul) and when I got home we listened to the top 14 or so. The listeners voted Dark Side of the Moon #1, and listening to the handful of songs they played off it, it did seem pretty epic.

Listened to 12 through 8 whilst gardening, and the for the rest my dad and I broke out the cards and played some Hold 'Em. I had to teach it to him, but now he's better than me. :<

On Tuesday Carolyn and Jacqi came over and we made Korean barbecue style food. Bulgogi and some potatoes and some scallion pancakes and some salad and some quick pickled daikon and carrots. Quite good! Potatoes could have been a bit less crunchy, but next time. Next time it will be perfect.

Wednesday I went to work all day and then -- wait for it -- I hit up the bar with Josh and Brian. Played some pool. Had a drink that was decidedly pink in color. It was pretty cool.

Then today I went back to my roots, interacting with others almost exclusively through an electronic buffer. Carolyn was helping Jacqi design a poster, and I was brought in as an auxiliary through the webchat. Follow that up with PSN dance party, and that about wraps up my day. We did go for a walk around the park and then to Foster Freeze, so don't worry about me not getting out at all!

It's June now, but it still feels like winter. Too windy! I need a summer, someone call me a summer.

-Steph

Handheld Thursday

2011-05-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I'm writing this to you on my phone because my computer is busy being backed up because of the disc error report I found when I got home from work! My favorite fish died today, too.

I'm just stashing away any photo folders that might be important, my whole folder of writing, my MDMB folder,my Minecraft world. If it's older than two years I already have it on the external, and if it's not in My Pictures or My Documents I probably didn't need it anyway. My music I can glean back from friends.

But at work I played with stickers for 8 hours. And on my lunch I had cookies and played Pokemon. True story.

Good news is I don't have jury duty, and Carolyn graduated on Saturday. Other than that...

Bah.

-Steph

Dusty

2011-05-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! We had a terrible wind around town this week, which is my least favorite thing. Blows the door open at work and gets the counters all covered in dirt. But even just the sound of it, knowing that you can't go outside because the air is moving... makes me uneasy. But it did rain quite a bit, over a couple of nights. Ninja rain. It was nice today, but last I saw there was some weird high fog coming in.

So who's ready for summertime?!

You know me, I'm always ready for it. I was spoiled at school, inland north of LA, where summer started in February and went straight through to November. I feel like I've been waiting for summer since I graduated. :< Coasts.

I cleaned my room the other day! To the extent where you can see my whole floor, and you can even see that my desk is made of wood! 60% was papers to be thrown away, 5% to file, 10% clothes, um, 60, 65, 75... and 25% CDs and their cases. Not together, of course. But shoot if there weren't ten stacks of CDs satting around in here. Where did I get all of them? Well, a good half of them were burned, and half of those unlabeled.

If you noticed some videos go up on Facebook this week, that's where they came from.

The closet's next, but I've had enough dust for one week.

All my tv is over for the year. I'm rooting for Barney/Robin still, and how crazy would it be if Andy got to be manager?

The funniest part of the Office today was this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HrQbjPjbBA

I found a $50 gift card while cleaning! What should I get?

-Steph

Whoops

2011-05-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

Totally forgot to post this here. Well. Better late than never.

Happy Thursday! Blogger is down at the moment, so this'll go on Facebook first and then I'll get it on the blog whenever that becomes available.

So Torchwood. lol. Turns out it's really good! Not that those bad episodes weren't bad -- ohhhhh how they were bad -- but the few suddenly good episodes weren't a fluke. Just finished season 2 like half an hour ago. Preeetty epic.

This week I made curry for Mother's Day and carrot cake cupcakes for Jacqi's birthday.

I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow and start cleaning my room.

Disc one of Carnivàle arrived today, I'll be getting on that soon.

Oh and I beat Batman: Arkham Asylum. 100% on the Riddler's stuff. Watched quite a few of the 60s Batman while it was still in my system. Speaking of good shows -- there's one.

There's an internet cafe in town called GreenForest Cafe and Jacqi sorta works there now. She made me a Lich King's Revenge which was wonderful, and then I got my 8th Gym Badge in Pokemon. It was thematic. Oh, my point was, you should go there! Play computer games or whatever, have some frozen yogurt. It'll be grand.

I love me a good sci-fi character drama. When is somebody gonna buy me BSG?

-Steph

Geeking out pretty bad this week

2011-05-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! We've been having lovely springy/summery weather this week, just a bit windy, really dry and warm. But today I walked to Trader Joe's and watched this massive fog mountain roll towards me. I got all the way home before it got to my house, but soon after that it got dark and damp and spooky. Weather. So whimsical.

I'm on a major Batman kick (literally?!) this week thanks to Batman Arkham Asylum. Swooping down on escaped inmates and kicking them in the face. It's good times. Or sneaking up behind a guy, smothering him, dropping him gently to the floor and then grappling up to a gargoyle to watch as his comrades discover his unconscious body and freak out. Batman's my kind of guy.

Probably the best part about the game, though, is the voice acting. They got Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman, which is the dream team from the animated series back in my golden childhood. Same Harley, too, but sometimes she delivers her lines pretty bad. The rest of the voice acting is spotty, a lot of bland readings, really. Wish they'd got someone of the Hamill/Conroy caliber for the Riddler, because he's my fave and his voice is alllllllllllll over the game.

Haven't seen him yet, though. I wonder if he's even on the island??

The computers were down at work on Tuesday all day. It was pretty crazy. It wasn't too busy, but the weight of knowing you couldn't just scan things and make everyone happy instantly was sort of unsettling. But it's all better now!

Been watching Torchwood. Bah, it's pretty bad. ALTHOUGH the one I just watched today was the best so far, being that it was actually average+ and I liked it. It was legitimately spooky, and not cornylololol in the slightest (which the one before last was OH SO MUCH). So maybe its cult following has some sense, if it continues to improve.

I guess I'll keep watching.

-Steph

Happy Birthday Mom!

2011-04-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! And happy birthday to you, Mom! A little redundant, but pleasant all the same. Her new laptop came today, so they're down there trying to figure it all out.

Have you seen the "ribbon" thing in the new MS Office programs? Where instead of a functional toolbar you have a bit mess of trash? Windows 7 seems a little too spacey for me. C'mon, Windows. Some people like you because you're not a Mac.

So today I made cake and ice cream, and my mom had a half day for parent teacher conferences which she didn't do any of. We watched Morning Glory which was not half as bad as I expected -- I actually laughed quite a bit. Played around with the new laptop, had dinner at Mimi's. The phone was ringing all day with family calling in. Presents and cake and ice cream just now. A million flowers are sitting on the table, some from the store, some to plant, some from our own yard.

Happy Birthday!

Didn't do too much else this week besides beat Portal (well, Carolyn did, I watched and back-seat portaled) which was A) amazing and B) hilarious. Topped it off by playing a ton of Minecraft where several Portal references took form, to the point where I dreamed about using the Portal Companion Cube as a block in Minecraft. Which I suppose is actually something you CAN do in Minecraft, with a texture pack.

Easter happened. I went to work. I broke my headphones. I met Jacqi at Foster Freeze for lunch.

Pretty good week. Gonna go have a food coma now.

Peace,

-Steph

Excel-ing

2011-04-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I had to wake up at 7 this morning, which was something new. Tomorrow it'll be back to the regular 9:30 if I have any say in the matter.

The early hour was on account of the sort of job interview I had scheduled this morning. Where they said "show up at 9," and I did and they were all "........we were expecting you later. Come in anyway I suppose we can fit you in." It was a good start.

I did some silly tests which included checking a list of number pairs to see if I could recognize whether each pair was identical or not -- actually a little challenging with my late-blooming dyslexic tendencies! Another was choosing between a pair of words from a list of word pairs, which one appealed to me more. A. forest B. trees. A. discuss B. consider.

Then there was the Word test, which was to copy a memo from the paper and format it and insert a picture and all that. Their stupid programs were set up with the menu bars all disjointed and "user friendly" so that slowed things along quite a bit. They were like tabs across the top, the tab for regular tool bar, tab for the drawing tool bar. So I couldn't find anything.

And then Excel. Copy the data table over and format it, find some totals. Make a chart. Too easy, it was tripping me out. You see, my resume implies that I know my Microsoft Office programs, but when they announced to me last week that at this interview thing there would be an exam on Word and Excel, I ran to Youtube only to find that I actually had no idea at all how to use Excel.

For example: it can do math for you!! I didn't know that before.

If you don't know how to use Excel, and would like to, here's the youtube channel that made me a pro in under a week: MotionTraining's Channel. Informational without being dry, each topic is covered at a nice easy pace. He's British, too, if that helps. But seriously, I watched all his tutorials and already feel pretty confident about using that program.

So the test part went alright, I suppose. In the actual interview I got the feeling that I wasn't exactly the person they were looking for as well as that this wasn't exactly the ~~droids~~ job I was looking for.

But another experience under me belt. And now I know how to use Excel.

After that, at around, say, tennish, I went home and watched non-educational youtube. Then I took a nap. Then I went to Carolyn's and we beat the Portal 2 co-op. Only took two sessions. And only about two of the puzzles were time consuming. And one of those was the final challenge, so that's understandable. But it was really fun, figuring out how to work the playing field and talking each other through the logic maze that is a successful portal deployment.

Earlier in the week my mom's yogurt maker arrived. It's really more of a yogurt incubator, and it has such a cute sciencey pod shape. But it came with a recipe book filled with uses for your shiny new yogurt, and one in particular stood out. They call it "Greek Macaroni and Meat Casserole." Where basically it's meat and macaroni, only the meat is seasoned with oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and the whole thing gets a yogurty white sauce on it before it bakes. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude it's so good. I'll make it for you some time.

Oh yeah. I was looking up the facebook album if you want to see pictures, and I'd already forgotten I made a cake, too! A roll cake, flavored with instant coffee. Coulda used more. The filling was home-made whipped cream with some cocoa powder and cinnamon. Because normally you might have a chocolate thing with a coffee accent, I wanted to switch it around. It came out alright! More coffee next time, and I'll roll it up better.

Come on over and we'll have a food party.

-Steph

More Village

2011-04-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Don't make coffee frozen yogurt with day-old coffee and honey flavored yogurt. :<

On one of the last days Steven was here, we went to this Indian restaurant on Main street I always drive by and want to go to but never do. We just missed the lunch buffet, but we had some pretty delicious stuff. The garlic naan!!! The korma I had!!! Best any sort of food I ever had. You guys, we gotta go there again.

So then I tried to make my own korma, but it came out as a bland curry, really nothing like the korma I expected, which was too bad. Tried some naan, too, but the dough seemed too dry. Looking back, it's probably because I used Greek yogurt, which is way thicker than the yogurt we normally get here. Baked it was alright, but after it cooled it sorta picked up this funny flavor.

Indian food, why you no cooperate?

But you can get frozen naan at Trader Joe's and stick it in the oven for a few minutes, and that's almost as good as you find in a restaurant. They just put in a Trader Joe's up the street, and if it wasn't so crowded with hippies all the time I'd definitely go there and stock up on naan and stuff. But Indian food would be something I'd like to know how to make at home.

Oh, but I did make some pedas, which I had never heard of, but this site taught me how to make a quick version. I don't know how they're supposed to taste, but these are pretty good. Very sweet. I might have over cooked them a tad.

This week I had two days off at the start, and then the full work week to follow....but halfway through Tuesday they called and said the other store needed a shift covered, did I want to do it? 4 til close, 11 PM. Sheeeeeesh. So I did it. What a busy store! What crazy customers. But I survived. Hoorah.

Oh that's what I was doing on Tuesday. So remember several months ago, when AMC showed their miniseries The Prisoner? Remember how I was all "Seriously, when I get it for my birthday, we are all sitting down and watching it." Well I didn't get it for my birthday, but I did get it for Christmas. And just this last week we watched it for the second time.

It was actually worth the wait, because some details were fuzzed, and there's nothing like watching something again for the first time. Especially something really good that had super strange things and mysteries around every corner. So let's watch that again!

Oh, speaking of, I've got to go catch 30 Rock. The shows are new again this week! How do you feel about Will Ferrell on the Office? I don't think he'll last, personally. I don't think he's meant to, I think he's just a gag filler until they finish this arc and get someone permanent. That's just the vibe I got from the episode, I haven't been reading the trades. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.

Be seeing you.

-Steph

抹茶

2011-04-07T22:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! It got cold, and my phone thinks it's going to thunder tomorrow. What happened to the summer I was waiting for? :<

I had Spring Break this week because Steven is home on his real one. Super time for adventures!

It started over the weekend where we gathered at Carolyn's house and played her giant Risk game. The thing is flippin huge. There was five of us, and it took about three hours for Steven and Carolyn to jointly take over the world before calling a truce. (Jacqi was allowed to keep a bit of Australia) It was pretty epic.

Tuesday we (same peeps minus Jacqi) woke up hecka early and drove with Carolyn to school. Steven and John and I played pool in the student union, a really fun game called cutthroat. Then Steven's friend who actually attends that school came by and we played regular doubles. When that got old we tried some ping pong, and then we took naps.

When Carolyn finally got out of class we booked it on down to Little Tokyo to see Steven and John take on the Special 2 challenge at Orochon ramen. They've got ramen in increasing levels of spicy, starting at 7 and going to 1, then BEYOND 1 there's Special 1 and Special 2. If you can at Special 2 in a half an hour you get your picture on the Wall of Bravery. I had a 6 and that was spicy enough for me. Steven and John's was a brick red and had sliced jalapenos coating the surface. But Steven did it! And lived! It was extremely impressive and entertaining.

Bought an anpan from the supermarket down the stairs from there after, but it wasn't too great.

Today we attempted panda bread again. Tried different yeast and added more water and a bit of sugar to the cocoa powder before mixing it with the dough. The cocoa modification seemed to work, but the yeast didn't seem to activate this time either. We also did all the kneading by hand, so it never got as rubbery as when we left it to the bread machine. So flavor-wise, today was an improvement, but it's still not yet something I'll consider conquered.

Since Carolyn doesn't really like the tea made from her giant canister of matcha (抹茶) powder, I used some to make some other green tea flavored treats. Chucked some in some ice cream, which didn't follow any recipe but still turned out as ice cream.

Also attempted to make my own anpan, with matcha in the bread. I'd already wanted to make a green tea bread, since that was my favorite part of the original panda bread, so when I was looking up recipes I came across the idea of doing the red bean paste bun with green tea bread. IE matcha anpan.

Used this recipe, which was marvelous. Bought some smooth red bean paste from Mama-ya, which is something I also want to use in anman if I can ever not kill yeast again. The tea flavor and color is really subdued, but the bread itself is probably the best bread I've ever made by hand. Even though I almost ruined it because it was sooooo sticky that I think I must have originally put in two cups of flour instead of three. But we fixed it and they turned out great!

When I put the pictures in Facebook just now I realized those hot cross buns have to be from nearly a year ago -- time to make them again!!

I don't know why no pictures from my six weeks as house chef didn't make it into the album. I only took one of St. Patrick's Day green food. I guess because most of it was salads and economical foods rather than neat looking things like soup in a pumpkin. Because according to that album, I only make snacks and desserts! Which is almost not true at all.

Going to make coffee frozen yogurt with honey blended Greek yogurt when the frozen mixing bowl is frozen again. :3

-Steph

Doodles

2011-03-31T21:45:00.001-07:00

Happy Thursday! Winter is finally over! It was actually hot today! Let's hope it keeps it up and doesn't run out of steam before summer hits. I don't think I could handle another cold summer.

It's great weather for wandering around, but it would be better if I hadn't ruined my knees the other day doing chalk drawings in the driveway. Not from kneeling, but from crouching and/or standing up and down. Can't go down stairs or bend down to pick something up from the ground anymore. :< I never would have expected chalking to be such intense consequences.

Must practice.

So while we were accompanying Jacqi to the WalMart for some reason, a little box of chalk jumped out so we bought it. This is me and Carolyn. Only a dollar! Put to great use, graffitiing all over my driveway with poorly remembered geek imagery. My favorites are the zombie Charmander and the right-hand curve on the X360 controller. Carolyn especially likes her Pokemon trainer.

Can't wait to recover/buy more chalk, and then we can deface Jacqi's property!

Hung out with them-all today, pretended to play some old boardgames and stuff. Broke me away from watching the Yogscast and listening to the YoGPoD.

Oh also Minecraft updated today to Beta 1.4, and now there are wolves! I tamed some. Very exciting. They are useful because they will fight for you, but that's sort of less useful these days because I've started cheating and setting the time back to morning every night. Ah, the power.

Sad that all my tv was reruns this week. This is why internet programming is catching on -- here I am watching the entire backlog of this one youtube channel on my own time, while they're adding new content almost daily. Wait a week for the new installment of your favorite show? That's so outdated.

-Steph

Panda, go Panda

2011-03-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! What have you been up to this week? Got any rain like we did?

Took some rain walks today which were very nice. Feels like Christmas. Went to Fresh & Easy for supplies, and after dinner my mom and I walked to Starbucks. Got to wear my hat all day.

So tomorrow is my last day of my six weeks as house chef. Thanks to me, I lost three pounds! I'm sorta burned out on coming back from work at 10:30 and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhaving to make lunches for the next day, but I'm also wondering what I'm going to do with all my free time next week.

Minecraft?

Carolyn came over the other day and we attempted panda bread. Historically, I am a yeast-killer, but I tried real hard this time to be gentle. It might have worked, but there were a lot of other wild cards, like the original recipe (though translated from Japanese) being in metric measurements. And also we left the dough unsupervised to go to the post office, and later left it to proof in a coldish place.

There's also that we only got as far as the eyes and forgot to layer the ears in. Oh well. Oh. And how I was trying to bake them (we each made a loaf) at 200 degrees F, instead of 200 degrees C.

Tasted mostly like bread! Any future attempts will most certainly go more smoothly.

I watched three Pokemon movies this week, and one of them I liked quite a bit. I also loved this Pikachu moment where he impersonates Team Rocket's Pokemon. Ahaha. I watched that a million times.

Wrote a song about trains. Played some Borderlands. Played some guitar. Went to work. So exciting round these parts.

-Steph

I Wanna Be A Pokemon Hero

2011-03-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! And happy St. Patrick's Day! Did you see the green food I made for my parents? So festive. Torn between wearing green and wearing brown and red... such struggles.

So me and Carolyn went and got Pokemon Black and White, respectively. There goes my Minecraft hours. It's a lot better than the last one I played, where everything was so new and confusing. In this one, everything is new but well manageable. The new Pokemon are not so strange, and some are pretty cute! Wanna battle or trade?

I accidentally wrote a song about Pokemon, too, and it's been stuck in my head something fierce. I'm gonna make MDMB record it. HAhahahaha.

What else happened this week? I watched Swordfish and Traitor which were really bad and only okay, respectively. Swordfish was, like, amazingly bad. So bad. Even though it was shot in Ventura and showed my favorite storefront (RIP, Nicholby's). And Traitor was a deep character drama that brought up many interesting discussions in a very bland way.

Can anyone recommend me any good Don Cheadle movies? Or do I have to watch Ocean's 11?

We also went to Jacqi's one day and washed her and Carolyn's cars. And at some point we went to Border's and I finally used the last of a giftcard I'd had for like ten years. I got Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and Boston's Don't Look Back. Quality albums, the both.

Haha, so that's about how I spent my first week of being 24. Classic rock and Pokemon.

Best Wishes,
-Steph

Welcome, 24

2011-03-10T22:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I'm so so soooo so full right now. It's disgusting. !! What a crazy and interesting and nice birthday.

So let me tell you about my car. She's a pleasant old boat that my brother used to drive, and before he did, an old lady didn't. She's got a sparkly blue paint job, a real character.

For the past ...forever, she's also made this lovely terrible screeping sound in the engine. It's the belt! people on the street shout to me. I know, I know, I say. So put a pin in that.

My dad's car was in the shop, so we drove my car into LA to go see Eric Clapton yesterday. My dad had a meeting in the afternoon, so I drove out to Chatsworth and lounged in my car listening to the LP concert I had attended (the free download became ready just that morning). Finally it was time to head towards City Walk and see what there was to see before the show.

We got... two miles, and at a stop light something fell out of the engine. !! Lost power steering and the fan, the battery light started blinking because the alternator wasn't running. The needle on the temperature gauge started rising steadily. We limped into a Shell station that seemed to have a mechanic, and got it sorted out:

The screeping sound had been caused by a pulley that had been drifting out of place, pulling the belt out of alignment. This rubber bit inside the pulley had finally melted or snapped, and the pulley itself and just fallen out of of the belt system, just hanging out in the engine. So he ordered a new pulley and we ordered a rental car, and we left my sweet baby in Woodland Hills overnight.

The rental car was a massive minivan with satellite radio and automatic sliding doors on both sides. Meh. It got us to Universal Studios just fine.

Ohhhh Eric Clapton. Where do I start? The Gibson Amphitheatre was a classy venue with nice seats and great sound. Here's a picture. I would guess I was sitting right to the right of that aisle where the shot was taken from. Possibly another section over? Not bad, though. And what with those giant screens, there weren't really any bad seats.

I don't have as much to say about Clapton as I did about LP, because the day had started so early and been so distressing. But I mean, the man can play the guitar. I mean, in case you didn't know. I would say he's just as good now as he's ever been. And in my opinion, the strength of his voice last night was even better than any track or youtube performance I've heard. Maybe it was the sound system? Either way it was amazing.

He was wearing these old jeans with holes in the knees and a green pukka shell necklace, and he looked very sleepy. But he rocked the house. Played Layla unplugged style, played Old Love and Badge and I Shot the Sheriff and two songs from the new album. Before the encore of Crossroads, he finished with Cocaine. It ended like this:

Eric Clapton: She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...
Crowd: COCAINE
Eric Clapton: *smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile*

It was really great, he's a master. Definitely worth it. Thanks for going with me, Dad!

So today I had to drive the rental car back and pick up my car, and that went okay (as okay as could be expected, but whatever, at least there was a bank within walking distance). Carolyn went with me! And then we swooped by and picked up Jacqi and then my mom from my house and then my dad from VC and we went to the Greek at the Harbor.

Cake and ice cream at my house, and presents! That's why I'm sooo full. From the cake, not so much from the presents. Although Jacqi did bring me cookies. Thanks everybody, for your thoughtful gifts! It was nice to spend the evening with you.

And thanks to everyone else who wrote on my wall and all that, and to my sister who sent me like a million texts. And if I hadn't been on the road all day, I would have talked to more of you on the phone. I'll call you tomorrow!

Right now I think I'mma go pass out in a food coma. Happy 24, everyone!

-Steph

Good Eats

2011-03-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! My sister-in-law is having a Thursday birthday today, so let's all wish her well. Happy Birthday!

Pleasant walk to Target, construction started on my ghost town, dinner with friends and lunches all set out for tomorrow. A nice day off.

So I was never much into salads. Until like, I don't know, maybe within the last year they've started to be okay. Now most days I'm usually making one and sometimes two. My go-to salad filler is romaine, because that's good, it seems more nutrient-filled than iceberg (which is what I grew up on), but not too bitter like some of the darker stuff. Crispy, too. For the three of us, per salad, I'm chopping up an entire romaine heart.

But then what? I started out cutting it with spinach, but my dad wasn't too big on that. Tried a fish salad this week, including cod flakes and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and green summer squash. A lot of times with chopped nuts and dried things like blueberries and craisins and stuff. We've had a Greek-style salad at least once a week so far, with the tomatoes and cucumber and feta. The one today also had mushrooms and olives and celery, and was strikingly good. I think because it was a combination of vegetables (and fungus!) rather than a heap of lettuce with things in it.

Does anybody have some fun salad ideas? That use lettuce to its full potential or perhaps are some interesting vegetable combinations?

Oh here's one:

Have I told you about Russian potato salad? It's the best. Basically it's all these chopped things, but crazy things, like potato and carrot (boiled), cucumber AND pickle, boiled egg, um, ham. Onion? I like to add frozen peas, give it a nice pop. And it's got a mayonnaise based dressing like regular, and also dill? I forget the recipe I originally used, and there are so many versions out there. It's fun to just put whatever you want in it. I like it with a dash of mustard.

So I made that this week, what with the potato and the egg (I forgot to buy ham or even turkey :< ) and then all the vegetables it would be a full enough meal. Chopped some celery as small as the peas, for a nice crunch. But I wanted to do right by my family, and so instead of using a heap of mayo, I used a heap of garlic flavored hummus. !! Protein boost right there, as well. It worked out just fine, and my mom didn't even realize. That particular hummus had a strong...pickly? flavor to begin with, which I attribute to the garlic. They use garlic in pickle brine, don't they? So it was able to contribute that potato salad tang with, like, a third of the calories.

Also, I like to think that adding celery to anything automatically cuts a portion of the caloric content, being as you burn more calories digesting celery than you got from eating it. Fact.

Dinners have been pretty easy since I've been relying on the frozen Dream Dinners bags for the main course. Dream Dinners is this place where you go and package a bunch of fresh-cut ingredients into dishes they've set out ahead of time, and then you freeze 'em and use them when you want. At first I was all mlehhhhh about it, but now that I'm putting on a nightly show, their convenience cannot be overstated. I just provide the vegetables (mostly salad although today was also grilled summer squash), and maybe a grain product of some sort.

The other day I used their salmon fillets, and added a mushroom and spinach couscous as well as a bag salad. They make 'em with the dressing and stuff, and sometimes that's an easier alternative to chopping the romaine and trying to figure out what else needs to go in it. Gotta start using more of those steam-in-a-bag vegetables, too. Bought one for today but it was too small for all of us and it was delicious. Yellow carrots and navy beans and spinach. Gotta get more of that.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all salads and fish around here! This week we had spaghetti (omega3 grains) and jello and tomorrow they get roast beef sandwiches and chocolate-yogurt covered raisins.

And so do I. :>

-Steph

Linkin Park at the Staples Center

2011-02-24T09:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I just entered my code to redeem my free download of last night's audio. Hooray, the internet!

So my ticket says this:

KROQ/GOLDENVOICE PRES
LINKIN PARK
A THOUSAND SUNS TOUR
WWW.LINKINPARK.COM
STAPLES CENTER
WED FEB 23 2011 7:30PM

Since this is me leaving suburbia and arriving in downtown LA at 7:30, what can be an hour drive was sure to be closer to two. So I left a little before 5:30 (after cooking all day lolol so precious, off to my big bad rock concert).

It was pretty backed up, and there was at least one crash on the shoulder. But it was alright, I had Mumford & Sons to chill me out. Did some impressive and dramatic lane changes getting from the 101 to the 110 and then again to the 110 three yards later. Actually! I ran into the most trouble of the day once I actually got into the Staples Center at around 7:20.

(Side note: as I was waiting to get in the doors, the plaza started playing Mumford & Sons' Little Lion Man, which had been playing in my car when I parked, so it was a little surreal.)

I've only been in there once before, back in highschool when we took the Germans to a Lakers game. (The Timberwolves won) And even though the streets and area around it are fairly familiar (the AX is right next door at the Convention Center), the interior was a big ol' mystery. I wandered around and around, all the while the clock ticking closer and closer to 7:30.

My ticket says PR13, and all these signs say, like m115, so I had no clue where I was supposed to be, and mentioned as much to at least three ushers. Finally it was revealed to me that I was in "VIP" seating! And need not traverse upon this level, among the crush of the common folk buying their hotdogs and beer.

But seriously, the one lady told me to "turn right, go past the kiosk, and then turn left." And this is with the auditorium behind me....I followed those directions and it was still behind me, so you can see how I might have been confused. I went up escalators. I went down them. Finally when I found the VIP doors, the honest to goodness directions after passing through were "go down, then up."

At 7:42 I texted my mom: Ok I finally found my seat. It's pretty awesome

The PR on my ticket stood for Premier seating, which was the second tier of bleacher seats. I was one row down from the top, right on the aisle, which was cool except for the rail in the aisle was a touch into my line of sight. But that ended up to be not a problem at all.

The stage seemed really close, probably even closer than I was at the Citizen's Business Bank Arena. It was actually set, um, diagonally into the floor? Like instead of being this platform across the one end, it pointed out into the middle, so the farthest spot forward was the corner of the stage, and it tapered back to the sides, so there were people seated nearly behind it, but I bet their view wasn't so bad.

At around 8:20, the opening act took the stage. I think they were called The Prodigy, and they seemed to be some sort of... band... from England. This is what I recalled about them, to entertain you with.

There were two guys in the band. One was the drummer, and he really owned those things. Really impressive to watch, he was a madman. The other guy seemed to be running at least four Macbooks, a keyboard, a synthesizer, and a sampler, and who knows what else.

Oh, there were also two guys whose job it was to hop up and down, holler rhythmically, and point at the audience. There was also a guy who did a fair amount of hopping, and he wore a guitar. Sometimes he wore a bass at around his knees, to little or no effect.

They had the most ADD strobe and lights effects I've ever seen. I had to look at the audience on the floor or else I might have had a seizure and/or exploded. They didn't seem to be too into it. As I watched, a lone man started heaving himself against those around him, all of whom gently swayed back into formation. He tried again (moshing and surfing were actually plainly discouraged by signs all over the doors), until a guy in a white shirt shoved him pretty hard. They faced off for about two seconds, and then everything went back to being perfectly still, like ice frosting over a deep and silent lake.

They played until almost 9:00, and I clapped when it ended. They were to Linkin Park what John Mellancamp was to Bob Dylan: something I wanted to nap through.

But the boys took the stage about fifteen after, and the house went crrrrazy. Apparently it was sold out, and LA is the band's home turf. And Chester's son (his youngest, I gathered) was in the audience with his buddies, and it was his first LP show. So it was really special.

So, you have Joe Hahn running the turntable and the touchpad synthesizer and stuff like that, Rob Bourdon back there on drums, Phoenix on bass, Brad Delson hopping around all over on guitar and also some drums and the megaphone, Mike Shinoda singing and rapping and rocking the keyboards and also pulling on a guitar, and Chester Bennington singing and screaming his lungs out and also drumming and a tiny bitta guitar.

Everybody was singing/shouting along. I didn't, at first, because I wanted to listen, but then it just got impossible not to go along with it. And also because Chester wears himself out and stops being perfectly in tune with the rest of the guys (something I knew from videos), so by singing with him, with everybody, it wasn't so much about listening to the performance but more like... experiencing the experience.

But dude it's soooo much fun to keep pace with Mike during, say, When They Come For Me or Bleed It Out.

They played most of A Thousand Suns, out of order, starting with Wretches and Kings. I know they didn't play Burning in the Skies, probably not Robot Boy, and I don't think I heard Blackout. But the rest of it was all there, including the historical spoken word, which was accompanied by the actual footage of the recording on the big screens behind them. Joe remixed some of it (I think? audio and video) on the fly, to great applause.

Actually, there wasn't much that happened that wasn't received with wholehearted screaming. Well, it's not the Beatles, so maybe not screaming, not like that. More like a mixed-gender, mixed-age crowd roar. But it was like

Chester: You guys are f***ing loud.
Crowd: SCREEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
Chester: Thank you!

They did quite a range of numbers from every album, even though mostly it was ATS. They are touring for that album, after all. But there were three or four, four or five from each older album. At least from Hybrid Theory and Minutes to Midnight...songs from Meteora I forget which album they came from. But they did Breaking the Habit, and that's surely off that one. But no matter what song came next, be it something brand new or that song from the second Transformers movie (or the first) or track one off album one, it was the right one.

Their first album, Hybrid Theory, came out ten years ago, so the older stuff was pleasantly nostalgic and appropriately so. They wrapped with... was it Crawling? I think so, because that has been a long favorite of mine, sort of the one you're subconsciously waiting for -- are they going to play my favorite? And it's excellent, and then they left the stage, leaving one guitar ringing on an endless reverb loop.

But I knew that wasn't the end, the perfect end would be the last two/three tracks off the new album, they were designed to end a concert. So they came out, and what do you know, Mike's in the spotlight at the keyboard, playing Fallout....then it builds and you're in the middle of The Catalyst... and then it roars to a close and Chester starts The Messenger, giving an warmhearted intro to it, saying it was written like a letter to his kids who are starting to grow up.

And even though this was the encore, and they just performed the ending of all endings, The Messenger isn't the end. They do...something old, I think. At this point, I was just trying to appreciate every moment because I hadn't realized time was almost up until it was too late (luckily the encore was like, 20 minutes. Or seemed that way). I don't remember what they played between The Messenger and Bleed It Out, but suddenly that's rolling along, and everyone's energy is back up to 120%. And then that ends, and in the middle of the noise, Mike steps up and says something about bringing us all back ten years, and then suddenly we're playing A Place For My Head. And then that ends and we're back inside of Bleed It Out.

Oh goodness, so amazing. Looking at other setlists from the tour, I feel like they did In The End and What I've Done in the encore. Probably their most popular singles of all time, now that I think about it. And In The End is so iconic of "Linkin Park." I was pleased and surprised that they played it-- played their older material with as much enthusiasm and energy as anything else. And man, those ones really stood out, with their undefined genre style and unrelenting force. ATS, that can very readily be labeled alternative or electronic, but olden Linkin Park.... there just are no words. Just sit back and listen to them blast it at you.

And then it was all over. Super happy I went.

Oh wait, I forgot about during Crawling, Mike was so excited about the crowd singing along, he stepped down off the stage and sort of...on top of everybody. Immediately sixty hands came out to grab him and pull him into them, but a guard clamped his own hand on the back of Mike's pants and held him in place on the edge. So Mike just slapped hands and waved the mic over them all, and it was super exciting.

It was a really great, enthusiastic, and appreciative crowd. Of all ages, but mostly people in their 30s, I'd say. Some younger kids--when the young Bennington was allowed up to the side of his stage to hug his dad before the encore, he looked ten or eleven. No elderly people, but everyone else from there on down. Not really at all the crowd I had been imagining and fearing all this time. Well, I mean, look at me, I was there.

A Thousand Suns, as an album, was a surprise, something that caught me off guard but in the right frame of mind. It's probably my favorite album out of any album out there, from any artist. This was the right time for me to go to a concert like this. The right time and place, everything. I can't wait to see what they do next.

-Steph

Housewifing

2011-02-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! For the next while I'm the house chef! Or, housewife practice, as some would put it.

Let's see, this week for lunch we had tuna sandwiches, modified cobb salad, salmon sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, tomorrow is peanut butter and jelly. Also salads and little carrots and celery with peanut butter and fruit cups and cookies and asparagus and broccolis.

For dinner we had um, was it meatloaf from the freezer, then leftovers, then ..leftovers again? And then something else from the freezer and then ?? Hm. Dinners I will need to work on.

But the general idea is vegetables, vegetables, also fruits, and then something with protein. I spent sooo much money on vegetables this week. It's pretty fun. I've dropped like a pound.

How was your valentine's day? I watched the Grammys the night before and the folk music performances inspired me to pick up the guitar again. Wrote a song! But it took until today for my hand to heal enough to play it well enough to record. Kids, if you're learning the guitar, don't take breaks! The guitar will not forgive you.

Last... Friday? Saturday? We went over to Jacqi's house and made Korean food. I mostly watched. It was rather good! I think my favorite was the tofu, which was fried in like soy sauce/sesame seed oil/garlic/green onion. I think it must have been Saturday.

And yesterday? Was it only yesterday? No it must have been Tuesday, Carolyn and I saw Harry Potter at the cheap theater. Gonna go see Tron there tomorrow, maybe.

Today I watched Alfie (sorta, after 30 seconds I realized I had in fact seen it all the way through before, so the rest of it was at 10x speed) and The Fountain. My favorite Aronofsky work to date (but that's because I did't like Pi and Requiem for a Dream was well made but sosososooooso dark).

Oh, speaking of the Grammys, check out this band. Can't stop listening.

And Linkin Park is in LESS THAN A WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK.

In Minecraft news, my computer restarted itself the other night and made the server sad. So half my park is destroyed and all of Carolyn's water trap is gone, and my box of treasures is alll disappeared. :< But the church is done, and the graveyard, so people who die in the game can go over there and record it for all time. Or until the server decides to go crazy and move mountains into other people's houses again.

Ok, I got to be packing lunches! Like a boss. I mean, a mom.

-Steph

Eerie

2011-02-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Are you enjoying Triple Play Thursday? I am.

Cold lately, no? I was rather enjoying our 70 degree winter. Honestly, I think the average temperature of this winter and fall has to be higher than that of last summer. Remember ~~, remember, the fifth of~~ November ~~gunpowder, treason and plot~~ and its days in the 90s? Everything's backwards.

Slowly but surely I'm converting my workplace into a Minecraft cult. Two down, another about to give in in a matter of days, and the last will have to follow.

:)

I made some ironing beads craft creepers, and a coal. Carolyn printed out some paper craft templates of cute cute creepers and diamond and stuff. She came over on Monday and worked on those, while I did crafts for my mom's play thing she just did at school. Carolyn also came over today, to "study" and do more crafting while I chopped up a bunch of lamb.

Irish stew! Lamb and Canadian bacon. Nice. Irish soda bread (which certainly didn't turn out the way it should have) and Champ, which is just mashed potatoes with other vegetables in it (green onion and cabbage today). Soup had a nice smell, I bet the flavor will really set up over night.

Aaand the other day me and Jacqi hung out at the mall! It was just meant to be because my mom was going to go there, to the Target, so I went along, and while we were there Jacqi called and was all "what are you doing? I'm going to Target." We ate at the China Palace or whatever it's called, and it reconfirmed my suspicions about why I never eat there.

What. I don't know what it means, but there's definitely a penny standing on its edge under my desk. ????

-Steph

I'm Back!

2011-02-03T22:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! How have you guys been this week? Good? Good, me too.

Today in Minecraft I'm harvesting trees. But trees take a long time to grow, don't they. Not if you grind up some zombie bones and slap that on your little sapling! I have a little bowl in the sky, surrounded by a cactus army, so if anything comes for me they get demolished down below while I'm safe growing trees by torchlight.

This week, after I was sick, I put all my Minecraft hours into a subterranean park. The spawn point on my server is on a narrow bit of coast between two mountains, so our first base is right in between. The mines go off to the east, and on the top there is the fort, and Carolyn's houses are off past there.... So I went into the original base and started excavating to the west.

One hollow mountain later, we have a lovely botanical garden! It has every form of Minecraft flora except for red mushrooms. I did find one in a cave over the lava cavern, but a creeper busted out from nowhere and destroyed everything. :< Creepers be creepin.

I'm not sure what I want to built next. Maybe the lighthouse? Any suggestions? My dream is to build stately Wayne Manor with the Batcave underneath, but it needs the right conditions and the right location to really work.

This week I watched The Who's Tommy with Beth. I quite liked it! Surprisingly edgy. And on Blu-Ray it looked like it was shot this year; astounding. Check it out, man.

My sister got me a Rolling Stone calender this year, right? And it came with a subscription to Rolling Stone, and I'd been looking for the card to mail in.... but it was nowhere because my first issue just arrived so I guess I was one step behind. But, so, the calender is of past Rolling Stone covers, so there's different bands and artists and stuff every month, and my sister told me I had to listen to whoever was up there each month. January was the Stones, so that was easy peezy. February has Bowie, Rod Stewart, and Elton John up there. Bowie, sure, I'm all about Bowie. --But then, this issue of Rolling Stone that just came features Elton John on the cover. So I guess I can't get out of it.

Two different stations played Tiny Dancer on the way to the theater this morning, it's a conspiracy.

Oh so I thought it was 11:45 but evidently I have a reading disability because I walked into the theater at 11:35 just in time to miss the Disney logo. (because it started at 11:25) I saw Tangled! It was actually really good, simple but captivating. All about how best to manipulate the emotions of a all-too-trusting young girl. Also edgy, in its own way. Voice acting was amazing, and the animation matched it punch for punch--so much so that I'm not sure a live performance could have captured half the emotion exhibited by these characters at times. Truly fluid and nuanced animation, that film.

I guess other than all that, I was just a sicky all week. Amazing how much time it takes up, being sick.

Oh, the one night, though, with the fever, I woke up in the middle of the night in my pitch-black room. "Why didn't I put up any torches!" It was a very serious question, at the time. I mean. CREEPERS coulda been spawning all up in my room!

This game may appear to be simple, but it just chock full of things to keep you entertained.

-Steph

Fever

2011-01-27T21:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Or is it? I guess it's okay. No work, just sat around and was freezing all day, nice 65 degree day. Sick, you see. But no work tomorrow, either, so here's for three days off this week!

I felt it coming on last night, so today I slept until noon. Read some of Keith Richards' book, some of Stanley Booth's book on blues music. Watched a whole passel of Firefly in spectacular Blu-Ray. Just sat there and looked at nothing.

It was the best day ever.

I was planning on getting a haircut today, but hopefully tomorrow. I feel like the kid who has his birthday rained out.

Watched a bit of Who Wants to be a Millionaire today with my dad. It's way different these days. My dad, too, was home as an invalid. He sprained his knee yesterday! :< Poor pops. Sad sack house today, that's for sure.

Blegh I gotta go to sleep. I'm over.

Here's some Peggy Lee to brighten your day.

-Steph

Short Week

2011-01-20T22:36:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! It's a little chilly right now! I'm sad about that. But I guess it is the dead of winter.

Well the other day, Monday, it was super nice out, and we even went to the park and got smoothies and everything. It was a real California Dreamin' sort of day.

We also almost finished Gurren Lagann, three episodes left. It's... hm. I won't exactly be sad it's over.

Yesterday I made waffles for dinner, which were good after I used the newer baking powder. And it turns out you need to leave the waffles in there for a solid ten minutes before they're done. I also made a lovely salad, and I was going to have some of it today, but it was all gone! So sad.

Other than that, I think this week has been work and Minecraft. I'm building a castle! Working on the upper hall, which is made of glass and is practically floating over the rest of it. Then work will commence on the secret dungeon, ooooh.

OH OH AND. I also bought a ticket to see Linkin Park next monthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WHO'S EXCITED I AM.

Yep, that's it.

-Steph

Minecraft

2011-01-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! It's unusually warm this week! Terrific. Keep it coming, please.

There were two things I did this week:

A) Watch anime and
B) Play Minecraft.

Oh there may have also been a cooking party. That was this week, right? It had to have been. Okay, we'll start with that.

Jacqi was sick, so that was sad. But she and Carolyn came over, and we tried cooking out of my Asian Grandmother's cookbook that my sister got me for Christmas. We ended up making chicken and waffles. The chicken was from the book (more or less) and the waffles were in my cute waffle maker I also got for Christmas. It was a whole lotta fun, and it wasn't too terrible a meal.

Day before last, it was not warm at all, in fact it was dark and creepy and cold all day. So I watched movies and then made matzo ball soup with the leftover chicken. Curry and matzo ball soup are probably my two favorite foods, and a day like that needs one or the other. And then me and my mom watched a whole disc of Firefly! It was pretty great.

The movies I watched were The A-Team and The Other guys, which were pretty cool and alright, respectively. The day prior I watched Shrek Forever After and The Social Network, which were pretty funny and highly interesting, respectively.

Okay, so I don't remember what day cooking day was, and I don't remember when me and Carolyn watched all that Ninja Nonsense. That was one of the shows we started at the AX this summer, and just now remembered to finish it. I think we finished it...yesterday? And also watched the rest of ICE yesterday?? I don't even know. Ninja Nonsense (or Ninin ga Shinobuden) is ridiculous in the perfect way; conversely, ICE is ridiculous in the worst way. Ninja Nonsense is lolololololol and ICE is ????????????????

Today we ... started? Continued? Gurren Lagann, a show we first heard of/decided to watch at least two AXs ago. It was not exactly what I had expected, but I was starting to get into it...and now we're in the second half and it's a little bit of a disappointment. It started out lololol/wow and now it's mostly ???????

So Minecraft. That's a game where you mine for things with which you can craft. Very simple concept. Oh, here's a good fan trailer. Most of the things you craft are meant to be used in building structures, and here's where it branches out, because if you can imagine it, you can build it. You may have seen my pictures? There's some pretty intense things that people have built, out there on the internet.

Oh yeah, and if you play in Survival mode, when the sun goes down at night...the zombies come.

So that's where my nighttime hours have gone this week. Mining, smelting, building. Setting islands on fire. Punching sheep. It's like childhood adventure play plus legos plus the future. My next projects will be a floating glass ball in the sky and a castle. And a giant sand castle out in the desert. And a secret island you can only get to by tunnel. And a giant chess board. And a lighthouse. Maybe a floating glass castle. It's gonna be great.

-Steph

Adventuring Day

2011-01-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! This week was terribly cold, but it seems a little warmer now. Almost like our fake summer this last summer. I'm pulling for an early spring.

Today me and Carolyn went on an adventure! For 8th grade graduation, they took us to this park in Ojai, of which our memories are limited. All I remember is the off ramp (not the one we normally use to get to Ojai), and jumping onto a butterfly to the absolute horror of Mrs. Mittelholtz. So we set out to find it.

Turns out that off ramp takes a 20 minute windy drive from the coast in, and I really really really don't know why you'd take a bus full of kids onto that road, when the regular way is much quicker and safer. And we didn't find the park because we didn't know where to look. So we just wandered to the back of Libbey Park and followed the bike trail all the way to the end. That bike trail, in the other direction, goes all the way to Ventura and ends where my band hangs out, and down onto the boardwalk.

We saw a number of squirrels, some of which were closer than expected. We found an athletics club and a humane society and a golf course and a power plant. It was a good walking adventure. There was also a fake Rocket Fizz, which had its sodas in order by brand rather than flavor.

We took the sane way back to Ventura and stopped off at Mimi's cafe before going to the fish store. I got a cute new catfish! This isn't mine, but that's what he looks like. Just named him Nixonde, where the -de is silent. That means he's Donnie's Nobody, what with the X in there, and if you don't know what a Nobody is, then you really gotta sit down and play Kingdom Hearts as soon as you can.

Then we played some ping pong--did I tell you we got a table for Christmas? We did. And we played on it. Which was very time consuming because it was as good a mind-blanker as Tetris. But then we figured out something better to do, which also got sidetracked by the epic sunset and then cheetahs.

But we finally got to our master plan, which was to watch something of our super long list of things to watch. Well, Ninja Nonsense wasn't exactly on that list, but it's super good and hilarious, so that worked out quite well. Ahahaha so much ninjas and so much nonsense. A+

This was the first week of the new year, wasn't it? Seems like it's been longer than that already. It was a pretty chill start of the year, reading and listening to the BSG compilation CD I made for my mom. People set off fireworks in my neighborhood, which was cool and also I think very illegal.

I think the only other really eventful thing I did all week was to beat Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories. Now I can continue on in 358/2 Days, which I incorrectly identified last week as 356/2 Days. And then play Re:Chain of Memories, Reverse/Rebirth. So many games in one franchise.

Speaking of, I might just go do that. Happy Thursday!!!

-Steph

Year End

2010-12-30T22:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! It's the very last one of 2010, now isn't that special. Of course it is, all Thursdays are special.

Today's was a lazy wintry type Thursday. Sleeping in and mailing stuff and watching anime and playing video games. I'm still so sleeeeeepy.

Christmas was pretty darn awesome. I baked two pumpkin pies and a batch of pumpkin cookies. I'm good on pumpkin goods for about a year or so. And is it just me, or is Thanksgiving food and Christmas food pretty much the same stuff? Although, this time we made this Germany-style vinegar potatoes, which were a lovely way to shake things up. Here's the recipe so I don't forget it.

We opened presents practically all day. We started at nine and took a break for eating when my aunt and uncle arrived. Then we chatted and whatever for a couple hours, and then it was back to the present dregs when they left in the early evening. It was a big-haul Christmas. I went and updated my wishlist after, and now that thing's pretty bare.

My folks got me all this stuff I've wanted for a long while, like Rock Band 3 (and the keytar!) and the full Cowboy Bebop set and Virtuality and The Prisoner miniseries from last year. AND FIREFLY ON BLU-RAY YESSSS. And so many books from everyone! My sister got me this cool Asiany cookbook and a couple other books from the publishing company she works for, and my brother sent along Dragon Age Origins.

My friends all got me cool stuff, too~ Carolyn got me a pillow which is soooo soft like a dream. Dreaming on a dream about a dream. Also a new lock pick set (hidden in a fake credit card lolol) and Sunshine on Blu-Ray. Jacqi got me Keith Richard's Life, which was a lovely surprise. I'm on chapter four. Steven got me a Buffy scriptbook and a slide for my guitar. I tried it a bit, and it has so much folksy bluesy promise. Now if only I knew how to play the guitar.

Thanks, everybody! You're all much too kind.

My sleepy is a hanger-on from Tuesday, when we got up super early and went out to watch some whales. We caught a couple pairs of gray whales migrating down to Baja, some sea lions, and a blue shark. The swells were pretty high on the way out of the harbor, and there were a few drops that reminded me of why I hate planes and roller coasters. But the rest of the day was smooth and perfect, if a little chilly. But I've never been out whale watching, and we ended up going around the back side of Anacapa Island to find the second group, and that's the farthest I've ever been out to sea.

It was crazy on the other side, nothing but ocean from there on out. It's not that I'm agoraphobic, more like a claustrophile, if that's anything. When I look out at the ocean, I expect to see islands, alright? If there was nothing out there, like most other people's coasts, it would freak me out.

So yesterday I did a repeat of last ... Thursday, going straight from work to LAX and back, this time to send my sister away and back up to the great frozen north. We had really nice weather this week, yeah? None of those crazy rains, a lot of sun. Oh but I just checked my phone, and it looks like the new year is starting up with rains again. A green 2011.

So my 2010. I got to know the Beatles. You might remember that Beatlemania was how I spent the full first half of this year. Rolled gently on to Bob Dylan, the master; became aware of the greatness that is the Rolling Stones; discovered Eric Clapton's Layla was a integral piece of my childhood; found out that the things I'd always loved, quietly in the background, had names like "slide guitar" and "bossa nova."

This year I obtained two bass guitars and an acoustic; I dusted off my old harmonicas and finally, after 13 full years, bent my first blues note; I wrote and recorded my first song with my new band, MDMB; we've written several more; I took a guitar class and can play two or three songs.

In addition to songs, I wrote some straight-up poetry after rediscovering T. S. Eliot. I conquered NaNoWriMo for the second time in a row. (During the same time I wrote my first Batman fanfic and outlined a story called The Ashmonger's Daughter.)

My very first phone finally gave up the ghost and I joined the ranks of the future with a new HTC smart phone. The future didn't stop me from enjoying the past, and this year I did acquire two Stones albums, two CSN(Y), a Beach Boys, a Styx, two Dylan compilations, Crossroads the history of Clapton, and I'm sure there's more I forgot in that stack of vinyl.

Carolyn and me beat Borderlands like a hundred times. Rock Band 3 introduced the keytar as a new challenge to master. I explored the western deserts in Red Dead Redemption. I conquered the first Final Fantasy for the PS3 (one of the reasons I wanted the system in the first place). I finally purchased Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories for the PS2 and, 30 hours in, am about to finish that sucker off so I can continue 356/2 Days that I just got for the DS for Christmas. Still waiting for the someday Kingdom Hearts III, which was the other reason.

This year I started wearing jeans and graphic tees. I discovered that the boys' large at Old Navy is my perfect size shirt. I got a pair of corduroys that are now my official Thursday pants.

I survived my first official all-nighter at work. I went to my first concert, Bob Dylan the elderly. I met my first online friend in real life the same day! I baked my first successful pumpkin pie (and the second, third, fourth, fifth......) I sewed my first set of curtains for my room and the kitchen window. I gave Donnie his first dance, which is something I've wanted to do since we met.

The tree trimmers came and ruined all our trees. (but they're starting to grow back!!) Several pieces of cabinetry etc. were dislocated from their historic positions in my house. (But we did get an HD flatscreen). Beth moved away to New York. Summer didn't come until November.

A busy year, indeed. Here, have this stat-filled picture of my top artists and tracks of the last 12 months. No surprises. Well, I'm a little upset that Nilsson is still in the top 15. Bleh. I got over that real fast. A little sneak-peek of some MDMB stuff in the tracks stats. Can't wait til those are really done.

2010, signing off. Here's to 2011.

-Steph

Merry Krimble

2010-12-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Today was rather epic, since I went to work in the morning and then went straight there to LAX...and back. Gotta rent movies, you know!

So that means my sister is home for the holidays, right now she's trying to dig up a fun game from the closet to dissuade us from the puzzle we just started. Because last fall she promised she'd do this puzzle with me at Christmas...last Christmas. I'm just taking her up on it.

Did you hear about our epic rains? It rained for what, five days? My car has smelled like mold since the first signs of mist. :< Mudslides down south. LA got its annual amount of rainfall in one month, that sort of epic. Everything's green now, it looks like Washington.

Yesterday in the library parking lot, I found a quarter right outside the car. And the little library bookstore was open, so I bought a Batman novel for 25 cents. Thanks, the library!

There was something else this week that was particularly blog-worthy, but I don't remember. It rained. Played PokePark with Carolyn.

We watched Salt and Easy A. Salt was strikingly average, and Easy A had some spectacular laughs. The latter was also shot nearby in Ojai, so it was cool to see a lot of familiar places.

Haha, I hear the sounds of Trivial Pursuit coming from downstairs. I think I will return to my puzzle. Have a happy times Christmas and I hope everyone you know is safe and well!

-Steph

Forever Rain

2010-12-16T22:53:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I hope you enjoyed our sunny summer days, because my phone says it's going to be solid rain for the next however many days my phone can see at one time.

Today was my day off, but luckily I got called in to work, lol. But it's cool. Need to start recuperating from this Christmas season. But there's no last-minute shoppings for me! I'm all wrapped and ready to go!

The other day I read Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. Eclipse I don't really remember (sort of like the movie), but I do remember liking it quite a bit. I think what really won me over was Edward backed off a lot and stopped making ludicrous demands every other page.

But Breaking Dawn. What WAS that?? Those are gonna be two really boring movies. And a lot of it was really...off putting, to me. In content and style. The second half struck me as particularly rushed, like not too much thought was put into allll those thousands of words. No one's personality shown out, even people I had previous liked. It seemed too distant. And then it just ended, but by that time I was really like "good riddance."

Oh well, what did I expect?

Let's turn to other media.

This has been, hands down, the song of the week. Watch it. Rolling Stones' You Got the Silver, with Jagger singing. That sliiiiide guitar work....! I could listen to it forever, and practically have.

And as long as we're throwing pictures around...

The one on the left was this evening, the second one was actually last Friday. Them's from my phone! So handy, that.

Catch ya laters!

-Steph

Jazz Hands!

2010-12-09T22:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Tonight my dad's Jazz Band class had their semester's end performance. It was cool! Good job, pops.

They played Autumn Leaves, which just made me think of Clapton's version from his newest CD, and how I heard Cream at the record store today, and how much I love British blues rock? I love jazz, too, but I think slide guitar beats out a horn section these days. I've become more Cowboy than Bebop.

Today it was actually warm/hot out. ! It was like spring. Optimistic spring time now??

I wandered downtown to some used book stores and had a nice time in the sunshine. I think the best Thursdays are the ones where I just wander around downtown. Should be a Thursday tradition.

This week I hung out with Carolyn a bit, had some driving and soldering adventures. We drove into Oxnard which was covered in a creepy fog, but in Ventura the fog would descend and clear on alternating blocks. Very strange. I think we also watched Eclipse on that day? It was so bad.

On Sunday, though, I got a new phone! You see, I got my first phone, what, eight years ago? Maybe nine. And I've had the one allllll this time. What a sweetheart, my little blue flip phone. But the flip did it in; the last month or so it's stopped being able to tell when it's open. Sadday, phone!!

So I got a new one. Thanks, mom and dad! I took a huge jump forward in time, from my little Motorola flip phone to a HTC Aria. But I love it. It has the internet and a camera and everything. My old phone couldn't even download ringtones.

It came in really handy the other night when I was sitting there reading the collected works of T.S. Eliot and my computer was spontaneously taken over by mal-ware. So I still had the power to remotely surf and chat whilst my desktop was undergoing scan after scan. (We're all better, now)

So T.S. Eliot! I remember reading The Hollow Men in tandem with The Great Gatsby in whatever grade we read The Great Gatsby, and that poem was the only thing for which I have that book to thank. I finally found the poetry section at the library (it's a shelf to the left of where it looks like it is), and grabbed this book. My memory does not deceive! Insta-fave, T.S. Eliot.

Cool! Have a nice week, keeds.

-Steph

December

2010-12-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Don't you all wish you had a five dollar bag of walnuts from the boys and girls club? You really do, you just don't know it. They're reaaaally good. The walnuts.

Today was a remarkably pleasant day. It's been slightly warmish lately, which is fantastic. It was my day off, and I had planned an epic walking adventure. I didn't end up walking, but that's okay.

I picked up Jacqi from the street, which is something I do. We went to that little Mediterranean/Italian/Argentinian deli and I tried their empanadas, which were alright. But I got to eat all of Jacqi's olives, which are my fave.

We wandered into Fabric Town, which was playing old lady music as usual. I think while I was checking out, an old lady tried to have a conversation with Jacqi. Then we went to the used book store next door and got some yellowed sci-fi paperbacks.

Next stop was Starbucks because it was either that or naptime. Their gingerbread latte is gingery. After that I dragged Jacqi to some thrift stores which is where I'm getting your Christmas presents!!

Fisherman Albert, of all people, was lurking outside of one, but I pretended that I didn't recognize him. But that's okay because I actually didn't, I didn't figure out who it was until much later. But he does exist! Downtown.

Then Jacqi went to work and I went home to wrap Christmas presents. Oh but first I walked to CVS in a lovely sunset for wrapping paper. And the 10 minutes of 30 Rock I saw was funny, and so was The Office (which was also unexpectedly touching). So today was really chill.

So November ended, along with NaNoWriMo. I did finish, although the last week was pretty stressful. I got to the real important stuff just as the deadline was looming and I was still days behind in word count. So I'll admit I did spit out quite a bit of trash just to catch up... so I don't feel bad about including my Batman fic or notes on another story as part of my word count.

Because if the act of writing 50k words in a month is going to cause me to hurt my novel (by not caring about what I write) then to keep forcing that novel idea is defeating the purpose. I'd rather include other, non-story words, because I did write them during the time allotted, you know? And just finish 50k words however I manage to, and save the novel writing for when I can give it the focus it deserves.

I thought that writing a novel last month would take up all my time. And it did, some days, but I also found time to write three songs, a Batman fanfic, a story about princesses, a backstory for the one princess, a new adventure for Pancakes the Unicorn; play video games; bake; have Thanksgiving; and even hang out with my friends once or twice. I also discovered a love of bossa nova, and learned a little four chord tune on the guitar.

So it was a successful month, all round.

Oh and Eclipse comes out on Saturday, so hopefully I'll be able to rent that sucker tomorrow and BASK in its glory. It's gonna be the most hilarious day evar.

Until next time, kiddies~

-Steph

41,216

2010-11-25T22:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Or should I say, Thursgivingday? Because yes. Yes it is Thursgivingday.

What a busy Thursday. I worked all evening so Thanksgiving had to happen early and fast. Our turkey was HUGE and I don't know why, there was just the three of us. And yams and green beans and sooo much stuffing and olives and I made mashed potatoes which is super easy. I had a whole turkey leg.

Stupid Face Cat came by and I gave him some turkey skin.

It was a clear clear day and almost warm in the sun. We took a quick walk around the block and in my two shirts and a snow vest I was quite content.

Before that I played some guitar to my dad's piano. We tried O Suzanna, because it has three chords that I know. Will keep working on that.

Then I squeezed in a good thousand words and then it was off to work. Since my all-nighter last week, I've been super behind in NaNo. But, currently, I'm only 451 words behind, so that just means one of these days I need to pop out a full 2k and then I'll be caught up. Which is nothing since I slapped down nearly 3k both yesterday and the day before. None of these thousands of words are any good, but they'll do for now. Only four days and 9 thousand words to go!

Remember last year, when I was lazy writing, I would get up and sew? Aprons, specifically. My diversion this year has definitely been baking. But what Thursgivingday would be complete without pumpkin pie? I made two batches of the little guys, one set for my co-workers. The rest are mine all mine! But no, you can have some.

So then I went to work and watched as people started lining up outside of Toys-R-Us at 5 PM. When I left at 10, their lot was full, spilling over into ours, and we're literally across the street. Hello, Black Friday.

I'm supposed to go shopping with me buds tomorrow, but they're getting started at 4:30 AM so I wonder if I'll ever see them. I still have 2k to write, and work at night, too. So busy busy.

This week I played a touch of Borderlands at Carolyn's, we watched a terrible comic book adaptation, and an ep of old school Batman. So it all worked out.

What else? Oh, baking, of course. I made stroganoff straight out of a foodnetwork video (ie, no recipe) as well as a Cheerwine bundt cake, which is a pound cake flavored and colored with a North Carolinian cherry soda. Thanks to my local Rocket Fizz, the cake was a success. Burned it a bit so it has a crust, but that sugary crunch is delightful. I'll make you one it was crazy easy. I've been eating cake for days.

Oh, the other thing I did of any note was that I drove out to my dad's office. Haha. BECAUSE some kids were shooting a scene for an upcoming webseries out back. The director was a screenwriter's assistant on Heroes, of all things. It was very indie guerrilla filmmaking, less crew than my own student film. But it was cool. When it comes out I'll link it to you and say "I was there! I know them!"

Well I'd better get back to writing. Gotta get a jump start on tomorrow. I don't think this novel will be done this month, either, but at least it's a little closer. A little more real.

-Steph

Stickers

2010-11-18T22:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! Guess who spent 10 hours out of the last 24 at work! It was epic.

I got back at 6:30 this morning, and I almost wrote this then. But my last guitar class was tonight and I didn't want to disappoint you all and not include one last update on how College Guitar and Thinks She Can Play.

Except I got called back in to work! So guitar class is behind me, and I'll never see Nine-Year-Old again. It's probably for the best. A clean break. He can't try to get me to find him on Facebook.

What else did I do this week. I can't think back past the stickers. (We put stickers on DVDs for 8 hours and then some) I even dreamed of stickering during my vampire-day sleep.

OH.

I've read Twilight and New Moon. Started New Moon some time on Sunday, and finished it in a marathon on Monday from when I woke up to 4 pm. It was a bizarre day which, much like today, started in the afternoon.

Got a little behind in the writings, but I wrote a Batman fic one day to make up for it. Beh, I still have another 1500 to go today. :<

Work, Twilight, writing. Um. That's about it.

-Steph

NaNo 2010

2010-11-11T22:14:00.001-08:00

Happy Thursday! We've got a winter's freeze goin' on, and I do not approve. Here's hoping for a freak double summer!

Today is the 11th, which means it's the 11th day of the National Novel Writing Month, and we should be about a third of a way through our novels. How far am I? Last night I got to... 18,348 words. What's 1/3 of 50,000? 17,000.

Actually, they recommend 1,667 words a day because that's 50k divided by 30 days. So 1,667 at 11 days is 18,337. So I didn't have to do anything today, haha!

Now all I know about NaNo is what I learned from doing it last year, and I find that this year feels so totally different. Last year I didn't know if I could write 50,000 words on one topic, or 15k a day, every day. And according to my progress graph that I saved, I stuck with it for a full week, and then dropped behind for the second, then pulled through and finished a day early.

What had happened was this. In the spring of 2009 I accidentally watched an episode of Smallville which gave me an idea. I thought about this idea and spun it and molded it, and changed my thought processes and eventually it became a few pages about a deathmatch between two people who had once been as close as two people could be.

That summer I filled out that idea and added a whole pack of characters and made it a story in its own right, called Epoch. And when my sister dared me to do NaNo, I thought I might as well try it, or else this full-blown story would never see the light of day. (I'm very lazy)

That first week last November, I spent writing an elaborate flashback, a murder mystery. I had put a lot of thought into the plotting, the order of events, what was important to reveal and when. That's not something I'm very good at. What caught me up was thinking too much. Since it had to happen in a logical, mystery order, I spent a lot of time working out plot holes when I could have been writing.

The next big thing that slowed me down was after I'd finished the mystery flashback. This was uncharted territory, and I didn't know what needed to be said and when. I hadn't spent three months thinking about it. The words just didn't come. I ended up writing a bunch of tangential things just for word count, and speeding through scenes in order to reach an event I did know slightly better. And then that was 50k and I just stopped, practically mid-sentence.

And then I didn't write anything for this for an entire year. I'm not joking, I was all WHAT November's here again? And then I got really antsy "I'd better do it again or this story will never get written AGAIN" "I don't have enough time!" "I don't know if I can do it" "But I don't have anything planned!"

But what I didn't account for was the full year I'd had to marinate these characters and their world and their situation. Day one and the words just poured out, no problem.

My tack this time was this: after thinking about it for a year, I realized that the segment that I'd started after the murder mystery segment was really important. And because I was floundering, I really didn't do it justice last time. So instead of just picking up where I left off, I jumped back in time and started from the first night after the time jump.

And I had no plans, no great schemes, just a general idea sketched out in a page of writing about what the atmosphere was during that time. The purpose of this segment is to hype inter-character tensions and give detail to the world they inhabit, so they just went and did that, I just guided the way. I still am, and I'm learning new stuff all the time.

Doing it this way makes it feel like there's no pressure. I don't have to get it right, just something like it. And if I'm going to finish this, it'll have to be edited anyway, so I don't need to put the perfect words down, either (just 50k of them will do). And after a year of living with these people buzzing in the back of my mind, I realized that I've got to finish it no matter what, NaNo is just an excuse to not put it off.

My other tactic which has really proven effective is taking bites. I mean, 50k already seems like so much, and the day-word-count already does this, chops it up into manageable pieces for the time allotted. What I just started out doing was writing some, getting up and going away for any amount of time, coming back to write some more, going away again. The pattern started being in the morning, some point during the day, and evening or night. So that's only like 500 words per sitting, and that's only like a page. Very very manageable. No pressure, you just have to write one scrawny little page.

So when I stop because I haven't thought about this or what happens next, I wander off and it doesn't even matter if I think about it or not, an answer filters up and when I go back I'm ready to continue on. It's sort of awesome. I just finished a fight scene which ate a lot of words and added some much needed excitement to my angsty angsty emo drama.

And the cool thing about not planning this part? The things that are happening are just slightly off from what I thought had happened. So their effect is not what I expected. In one particular area, it's transformed a weak narrative device into a plot-driven encounter. It's changed the attitude of one character so that what I was going to have her do anyway makes every kind of sense in the world.

I guess what's happening is by loosening the reigns, the narrative is developing more organically. And while I still have an eye on the outcome, the journey we're taking to get there is spontaneous and based more in these characters and their choices. Instead of just what I would like to happen. It's very exciting to be me.

Last year I made up a playlist of songs that I thought evoked qualities of my stories. Quite a bit of Linkin Park: Runaway, Easier to Run, What I've Done, and Leave Out All The Rest fit squarely with Bentley's arc. But my favorites on the list are Savior by Rise Against which is exactly what I'm writing

(That's when she said I don't hate you boy
I just want to save you while there's still something left to save),

and The Adventure by Angels and Airwaves, which is exactly the tone I want.

One of the reasons I think the new Linkin Park album resonated with me was because I was gearing up into the Epoch mindset, and these songs come along and fit right into it. I mean:

"I'm swimming in the smoke / of bridges I have burned
So don't apologize / I'm losing what I don't deserve"

is exactly where Bentley is. And so on. All these songs--the whole thing--is just the sort of dark dark darkest before dawn apocalyptic hopeful epic cinematic...thing that I want Epoch to be. I see the soul of my story within this album.

And then I watch Twilight and New Moon back to back and want to punch myself in the throat for my similarities to Stephenie Meyer. Vampires, a hard-pressed relationship that no one approves of, listening to Linkin Park while writing. Please someone punch me in the throat.

But I assure you, Epoch is not a ridiculous thing about highschoolers and vampires vs. werewolves. It's about highschoolers vs vampires, if your highschool was like Hogwarts and nobody knew about it. And then if you were there to team up with other kids and train to fight demons, but lots of times demons killed your classmates. And then if your one remaining partner SIDED with the vampires and your school was totally destroyed. And then if your partner shows up three years later and is dying from a vampire curse...what do the survivors do with him?

Harry Potter meets Battlestar Galactica, is what I call it. Well I call it Epoch because Bentley here sold his school (for powers that are only gonna put him in the grave); ending one era and beginning another. But it's about second chances, because Huxley here won't let him give up so easily. But what right does she have to try to save the life of a traitor when everyone else wants justice? It's very complicated, and very angsty.

Well I'll gladly chat your ear off about this if you want to know more. But this is how I'm spending my November. How's yours going?

-Steph

November = summer

2010-11-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! This has got to be one of the best Thursday's I've come across in a while. Lemme tell you about my journey.

Here is a link to a map of my adventure. I started in the parking structure downtown, dropped off my books at the library, trekked over to Rocket Fizz (IBC Black Cherry and a Look!), and then made the long walk over to where my band hangs out.

Or hung out, because they ripped most of it out? There's a road that dead ends there (you can see it on the map) and at the end of the rocks (which is officially where my band hangs out) there's like this little electrical building? Well. Not today. They ripped out that building and the road and leveled everything in between that and the edge of the surfer's parking lot.

I think they must be putting in a new/better bike path, because years ago, they built a bike path there that goes all along the board walk, and out along the beach to the river where it turns up and goes up the valley into Ojai. But forever ago, the ocean washed out that stretch along the beach, so they'd routed it into the parking lot there until it met up with the river. So now that whole parking lot is gone, as well as the frontage road that ran between it and the back of the fairgrounds.

I took pictures.

So that was a little bit of a shock. Especially since the weather was sooo nice and just like the summer I never had. I was going to hang out there and do some writing, but there was all that chain link and also a biker. So I just took pictures and moved along.

I did end up chilling off the boardwalk for a while. Listening to all the Linkin Park albums on my Zune. I was halfway through Meteora, and if I wanted to get through Minutes to Midnight before I got back to my car, which was loaded with A Thousand Suns, I needed to stretch out my walk a little longer.

So I went down the pier. There I met Fisherman Albert.

"What are you listening to?" he asks.

"Linkin Park," I say, taking off my giant headphones.

"Oh yeah?!" He's shocked, because what adorable 16-year-old girl listens to such a hardcore band like that?

"Yeah," I say.

"Which one?" he asks. He's very friendly.

"Minutes to Midnight," I dutifully reply.

"Oh, you like that song?"

".......yes."

"That's cool. I saw you rocking out to it," he says, clearly having no idea about Linkin Park. He mimes me smashing my headphones to my ear, which I had been doing.

"Oh yeah," I say, "I was listening to the bass part, trying to see if I could learn it."

"I bet you can," he says. He's very confident in me. We have a little conversation about fishing (the tide is out super far, but when it comes back in he'll be rolling in fish), and about Halloween (Transformers and Tinkerbells were all the way out here until like 2 in the morning), and about how nice Ventura is (what he considers Midtown I consider Downtown; what I consider Midtown he considers the East End). When I say my Halloween was quiet, he asks my age. How old do I guess he is? Turns out I'm a month older, and we're both surprised. He also guesses my weight at 90-100 pounds (while commenting that if I wanted to jump off the pier for a swim, he's got a net he could pull me back up in), so he's a charmer.

Tomorrow should be a 7.0, whatever that is, and the water should be about 64 degrees.

I had to re-listen to Minutes to Midnight on my way back down the pier.

The internet said I walked almost 4 miles. It was a great day for strolling and meeting strangers.

And I did do a spot of writing, foooooooooooooor...

NaNoWriMo!

Yep, it's November AGAIN! Crept up on me! Time to write another novel! Or finish the one you started last year and never touched again!

I actually want to tell you all about my process and this year vs. last year, but I just told you all about my epic summer, so maybe it'll wait til next week.

Basically, so far it's gone deceptively smoothly. Maybe I just know how to deal with the pressure this time? Maybe this part of the story is easier to write? Maybe sitting on an idea for a year gave it time to marinate? Maybe I don't care about the quality of writing anymore? I know it's only four days in, but I'm quite optimistic about making this 2 for 2.

Guitar class today was a joke, now that I've had two weeks off to learn by myself. 9-year-old was back, but I basically ignored him. Class was real small, just me and him and Middle Schooler and Overzealous Mom and Blind Girl and Confused Dad and Thinks She Can Play and Youth Group Girl and College Guitar. When he showed us something new, he eventually stopped checking in on me and Niner, because he knew I had it and the kid was a lost cause.

We learned the riff to Pretty Woman and it confused the heck out of EVERYONE but I was all doot doot doot bass line weeee and mostly just wanted to punch Thinks She Can Play in the throat.

Well. Only one more class. I'd say it was worth it, over all, though. I've picked up The Times They Are A-Changin' and it uses almost only chords he taught us. So I have to say the class taught me how to play the guitar. But the rest of it I can do on my own, just by playing, you know?

Over the weekend me and Carolyn saw the Owls of Ga'Hoole or whatever it's called, and Despicable Me, and I don't know I'd recommend them. Owls is super violent and the story is very very very poorly explained; but Owls are freaking adorable and some of that computer graphic work is outstanding. Despicable Me was cute enough, but the jokes were not that funny and just made me angry because the theater we were in was BUSTING UP every thirty seconds. No. Just no. The secondary characters were also rather bland and I have narrative objections to how the third act played out.

But speaking of bad movies, Twilight III is coming to DVD December 4th and I literally cannot wait. We're playing the trailer nonstop at work and I just keep looking over at it and giggling. Oh Edward. Oh KStew.

Okay. Unless something majorly exciting happens this week, look forward to an in-depth look at how I feel about writing a novel for next Thursday. WAY EXCITING YAY.

-Steph

A Thousand Suns: a review

2010-10-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday. A while back, I was asked if I even bought cds anymore. I thought about it, and my answer was a qualified "yes": I buy novelty cds (Big Band/standards compilations from department stores) and I'd buy "the next Linkin Park cd." The latter being some hypothetical and perpetual occurrence.

I hadn't had the chance to test my assertion until a few days ago, when, armed with a paycheck, I went and put money out on all sorts of things. One of which was a cd. It's probably the first cd I've paid for since Big Band Salute. It was the new Linkin Park cd.

It's been out for over a month, but it came out quietly. The first I even saw of the promise of a new album was from one of those sidebar ads on Facebook, of all places. I new it would be something different, since you have to expect something different ever since Minutes to Midnight, which was released two and a half years ago.

I went into it with an open mind (which it turns out I didn't even need), and I've never been so proud to be a Linkin Park fan. On top of that, I've never spent money so well as on A Thousand Suns.

GUYS I LOVE THIS ALBUM.

Hybrid Theory, their first studio album, was released ten years ago. This is not that album. What they've done in ten years is what the Beatles did in five and what Bob Dylan did in three: simultaneously reinvent the sound of the band and release their highest achievement to date.

It's their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Highway 61 Revisited, combined.

I don't know if it's my dalliance in the backlog of popular music that has attuned me to appreciate this album, but I think it helped me...helps me recognize effort, recognize...greatness in my time. It's all well and good to look back and see the effect Sgt. Pepper had on the late 60s, to look in awe at how far those lads from Liverpool had come, musically and literally. But to get this Thousand Suns and listen to it for the first time when no one else has listened to it and analyzed it and seen what comes next...this is the band of my generation--of my youth, personally--and to be in the stream of time as it happens, rather than looking back at the big picture....

Listen to this song. I Saw Her Standing There, the first track on the Beatles' first album, recorded in 1963. You like it. Everyone likes it. It's of the time, outside the time, drawing you in with its perfect simplicity. It's everything that made the Beatles the biggest act of their day.

Now listen to this. A Day in the Life, from the 1967 concept album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Do you like this song? It doesn't even matter. Is this song a landmark of musical ingenuity and skill? No two ways about it. Is it a turning point for the band? Of course, there was nothing like this ever before, anywhere. Is it greatness? Undoubtedly. You don't even need time to tell.

Start over.

Listen to this song. Song to Woody, from Bob Dylan's first, self-titled album, released in 1962. One of the very first songs he ever wrote for himself. It's simple, it's folksy; just Dylan, his words, and a guitar: it's everything that made Bob Dylan great.

Now listen to this. Like a Rolling Stone, from the 1965 full electric album Highway 61 Revisited. Is it different? Oh yeah. Did it stop him from being among the greatest songwriters of the 60s and all time? Didn't I just see him perform this in concert a few months ago? And how many times have you heard this song in your life? How many times have you heard "Song to Woody?"

(Further listening on the change of Bob Dylan)

This history lesson is my preemptive strike against the doubters, the people who didn't bother to or regretted spending money on A Thousand Suns.

Listen to this song. In The End, from 2000's Hybrid Theory. Is it good? It's what made Linkin Park great. To this day, if I even see the words "Linkin Park," I get the piano riff instantly stuck in my head. It's of the time, outside the time. It's new (nu-metal, The Man dubs it), it's overflowing with raw teen angst.

Now listen to A Thousand Suns. As great as Hybrid Theory is, the magnitude of difference between it and the new album is the same as the difference between the songs and albums mentioned above.

If Minutes to Midnight was a shock, a shocking change, that's only because it was a stepping stone to what they were really trying to do. The title of the previous album comes from the Doomsday Clock, by which scientists anticipated the proverbial End. It was a politically charged album, raging against the establishment instead of just against post-adolescent injustices.

It was an angry album. They all have been. Angry at ones own frustrations, situations, insecurites, the ones who wronged you, the oppressors, the government. It was very much a "you and I" battle, these first albums. You've hurt me and I'm angry at you.

I feel like in A Thousand Suns, the anger is still there, still focused at The Man from Minutes to Midnight, but that the dynamic has changed. Now it's "you and Them, and I'm angry at Them for you." It's a much more...sympathetic anger? Angry at the war machine on behalf of those it hurts.

Instead of "I tried so hard and got so far / but in the end, it doesn't even matter,"[In The End] it's "You say / you're not gonna fight / 'cause no one will fight for you" [Robot Boy].

From Given Up [Minutes to Midnight]

Wake in a sweat again
Another day's been laid to waste
In my disgrace
Stuck in my head again
Feels like I'll never leave this place
There's no escape

to Iridescent

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation
You build up hope but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go
Let it go

And beyond the lyrics, there's the musical experimentation, bold Sgt. Pepper stuff. The first 13 minutes, five tracks, are a solid block of...sonic experience. There's also a whole song--I'll show you:

Jornada Del Muerto

持ち上げて
解き放して

Bold. Bold statements being made here, musically. And the end, there's a whole, like, suite to wrap it up, touching on a bunch of things you've already experienced...it blows my mind. It's narrative, almost, this album. To listen to just one song would be to watch just one scene of a movie. To put it on shuffle would be to watch the episodes out of order.

And there's clips of historic speeches and statements, anti-war the lot of them, set to a beat between "real" songs. The first track has the Sputnik peep offset with this piano beat. The same piano bit comes back in Waiting for the End, and the Sputnik peep comes back in Jornada Del Muerto.

It's a very dark album, gives me the image of post-apocalyptica. Like this comes from a different time, where Midnight's come and gone, it's already too late. Maybe it's just because I was just playing Fallout 3 the other day. Maybe it's the BSG tones I hear in a particular piano riff, or the crazy drum intro to When They Come For Me. Or the opening to Catalyst, which gives me vibes from Akira's wind-swept Neo-Tokyo.

My least favorite track is Wretches and Kings, because it sounds the most like the old stuff. Personally, it serves as a reminder of just how much more I like the new stuff. There's still Mike's vicious rap, there's still Chester's epic screaming, but more than that there are songs where one or both of them sing with the smoothest, most melodic voices of angels you EVER heard. And the harmonies!! There are no words.

Okay, so this turned out not so much a review, but I just needed to express myself on this subject. It's...something more than just "the new Linkin Park cd." It's history in the making.

Forget being bigger than the Beatles. How am I supposed to beat this?

Maybe it's just the right sound at the right time, and I was in the right mood to hear it, but I think it's just perfect. If your opinion differs from mine on this, I don't want to hear it. Because if you don't see what this album is, if you don't think that this is amazing, I will remember you. And perhaps time will fade my grudge, but until then I won't be able to take your musical opinion very seriously.

Maybe you only like traditional Irish lute music, though. Maybe that's your thing. That's okay if you don't like the way this sounds. But if you like good music, regardless of label, you have no excuse.

And if you're looking for the old Linkin Park albums, you know where to find them.

-Steph

More little pies

2010-10-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Super rainy week! Thunder rattlin' windows and lightning everywhere. It's exciting.

This week I did a lot of odd projects. I sorted a big pile of coins (literally a pile) and tucked some away into my coin collecting books. YEAH I COLLECT COINS. Found some pennies in there from 1959 and a bunch from the 60s and I collect everything from the 60s.

Went online and found a recipe for copper cleaner, lol. Powder detergent, vinegar, lemon, flour, salt, water. The vinegar and detergent did the whole science fair volcano explosion, it was epic. And then I scrubbed pennies all afternoon. With a travel toothbrush. Hang out with me, dude, I'm loads of fun.

But now I got $8.50 of pure pennies to take straight to the bank. The $54 of silver I gave to my mom for cash monies. AND I still have another Kleenex box full of change. Yes. Another. I don't know why I chose that method of storage.

The next day I put together a fingerprint dusting kit, which was mostly just smashing up a bunch of mechanical pencil leads. It worked okay, but the dust could have been finer. Or my fingerprints more greasy.

One of those days I made some candles out of other candles?

Yeah that was the day I wandered around downtown and passed the same hippie twice, and it was raining and then it got hot, and then it rained again. And later it hailed? It was a strange day.

One day I baked some apples. I guess that was yesterday. Today I baked some little apple pies. Crans and apples, and walnuts and pecans on top. Probably coulda used less than 400 degrees, they came out kinda dry. They taste good but not amazing. I'll work on it.

Steamed my pumpkins and froze the gloop. Four cups for pies and cookies. But I'll probably go get another or two before the pumpkin season is over, freeze some more for the rest of the holidays. And beyond.

Today at guitar class I practiced and learned the last of his curriculum. 9-Year-Old wasn't there so I had free reign to strum and strum. Today it was just me, Quiet Girl, her sister, Confused Dad, Overzealous Mom, Thinks She Can Play, Chatty Uncle, Youth Group Guy, Blind Girl, College Guitar and Dad. It still took an hour for him to go around and listen to everybody.

Then we learned a new song, which was actually a bass part, so I was all dootdoodoo perfect, I got this. And then I played my bass songs until it was time to go.

Two more classes in the next month, and he's got nothing left to teach me. At this point I'd say I'm conditioned to learn how to play the guitar. From here on, I can basically teach myself, or have Beth show me. But now I have the callouses and the coordination to move around the guitar, and I've seen just what forty minutes of repetition can do, I just gotta keep it up. Cool. I'm comin' for you, Eric Clapton.

Speaking of. The note he bends at 6:26 just makes my heart stop. Augh. Genius.

Other than all that, this week was mostly work and trying to beat Borderlands again. We're so close.

Oh me and Carolyn and Jacqi also hung out at the mall (?!) where I bought this ~~cute~~ AWESOME cat astronaut shirt. A cat face in an astronaut helmet. I love it. I'm wearing it right now. It's brown. It's perfect.

I also have a catfish in my tank that I'm raising for Carolyn. It'll hopefully get up to 6 inches, so it'll be less of a target for her turtles and then can nom on all the stuff on the bottom that no one else nommed. Hooray fish.

Yep that's about it. Imma go play video games. Peace.

-Steph

Epoch Round Two

2010-10-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Weather update real quick. So it was cold and wintry all summer, right? And then September comes along and it's like, heat wave city. Then that ended and I thought it was all over. But October has surprised me, it's been nicer than summer ever was. But it does crazy things, like be in the 70s, then the fog rolls in, then the night is clear, then the next day starts foggy and clear up to like, rain clouds, then the day after that looks like rain clouds and then gets hot and then the fog rolls in.

Last night I saw the fog swirling around the door outside of work, I could see the fog particles. But by my house an hour later it was just regular fog. Today was dark but not cold. I guess I'm just surprised that winter didn't jump right in like I thought it would. It's great.

It is pretty dark pretty early, now, though, so walking to guitar class is in pitch darkness, whereas two weeks ago it was sunset.

When he went around and had us play the chord sequence we'd been practicing, he told me to play it stronger (typical timid me), so I was strumming and strumming for the next hour so my buddy didn't really have the chance to chatter. It's sort of shocking how fast an hour goes by when you're just playing seven chords over and over. Next week we're going to be playing the melody and the chords for Camptown Races, in partners. That's the idea, but I'll be paired with 9-year-old, who spends his time in this class the same way I spent my time in Orchestra, which is to say, it wasn't his idea to be there.

Oh yes, the roster this week. Eleven of us. Me, 9-year-old, Overzealous Mom, Dad, Youth Group Girl, Confused Dad, Middleschooler, College Guitar, Talkative Uncle, Youth Group Guy, and Thinks She Can Play.

But even with this hour and a half of practice every week, I can see some improvement. What I was playing today was G B7 C G A7 D7 G. Last week I was only just playing the one on the list right before this, G C D7 G, G and C being the hardest for me so far. So this time I learned B7 from scratch, and kept at G and C, and I was doing preeeeetty well by the end of the hour. I felt encouraged.

9-year-old asked me if I played any other instruments so I played him a bit of the bass blues line, and he liked that. The funniest movie he's ever seen is Killers, and the first dance is next Thursday from 3:00 to 4:00 (so he'll be making it to class), his favorite color is purple, and he only has like twenty minutes a day to do his homework.

Did I tell you I got some more pumpkins? When was that? Since the first pie, me and my mom went back and got some more pumpkins. One to carve, one to cook, three to serve stew in. My mom told the guy I made the best pie with his pumpkin last time, so he gave us two more to make some more pies and bring him one.

With one little pumpkin, like, 6 inches or so, I got two cups of pumpkin goo. The recipe wants three, but it still turned out okay. I used only one can of evaporated milk and only two eggs. Made enough for one full pie (which is promised to Jacqi) and today I used the rest (less than half) to make 12 mini pies in a muffin tin. Used one batch of the best dough (1 cup flour, 1 stick butter, 4 oz [half a pack] cream cheese). Now I need to make so many more mini pies. They're so cute and so hand-holdable.

This pumpkin pie recipe I'm using, I just googled "homemade pumpkin pie" and clicked the first link, which is how I find anything on the internet. Happens that the recipe is from pickyourown.org, which is also the site I'd been looking at in the summer about pickling. Small world. Use that recipe! The page is a little unwieldy, but once you get the idea you can work on your own. Now that I'm a pumpkin pro, I'm just referring to it for the spice quantities and the baking time/temp. Training wheels.

Next imma bake some apples. The holiday season really brings out the baker in me, shoot.

Oh, so. November is like, any day now. Or two weeks. I'm gearing up for continuing(/finishing?) my novel I started for NaNoWriMo last year. Haven't written A WORD for it since December 1st hahahahaha. But I been thinking and thinking and now that I'm sorta will I/won't I/will I about this year's challenge, I've been solidifying a lot of thoughts into what I hope will be another 50,000 words.

Wish me luck!

And a happy happy Thursday Birthday to Melody, who is SEVEN today! Woooo!

-Steph

Pumpkin

2010-10-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I have a horrible pain right in my back. I'm thinking of not spending too much time on this because of it.

Second guitar class was today. Or. Hour and a half practice time I'm paying for was today. We have a list of chord progressions to learn, and so he went around listening to everyone do the farthest one down the list they could do. I was first or second so he was all "Ok, try the next one."

So I tried the next one for the next hour.

For the last half hour I played the "blues scale" in E.

Then we went home.

And for the full hour and a half, I listened to the life story of my new best friend, 9-Year-Old, who is in fact twelve. Srsly. His whole life. Like. Every part of it.

This week our numbers dwindled. So just me, 9-Year-Old, Quiet Girl, Punk Rock Kid, Blind Girl, Thinks She Can Play, College Guitarist (whom my mom picked out across the dark parking lot just based on my description), New Dad, Dad, Little Mexican Lady, Talky Uncle, and Youth Group Guy. Now that I think of it, New Dad might be Confused Dad, who was sitting behind me last week so I dunno.

Yeah it's thrilling.

So the heat wave ended and then it rained a couple nights, which was pleasant. Seems like it'll be sunny for a while, now, but freezing. Fall flipped a switch.

So the other day I walked to the thrift store and picked up The Essential Bob Dylan 2-disc Special Limited Edition Digitally Remastered Classics on 2 CDs! for $2.25. Continued on to Longs for evaporated milk, a pie crust, and cream cheese. Continued back around to the pumpkin patch and selected a pumpkin for the kill. Then I walked home with all my treasures.

Cooking a pumpkin is rather easy. I chose the steaming method, which was simple. Then it needed to be blended, which was not as simple. Then it went into a pie mix and into some crusts. The store-bought one burn burn burned, which made me sad because I love a pumpkin pie with a graham cracker crust*. The second one was an emergency pie because we had a whole pie's worth of pumpkin filling left over. Luckily I had that cream cheese which is 1/3 of the world's best pastry dough.

The emergency pie is a little spicy (I doubled all the spices), a little fluffy (for denser pie use less evaporated milk and only three eggs), and somewhat lacking in pumpkin flavor (? I totes put that pumpkin in there). But otherwise it is a success.

*The last time I attempted a pumpkin pie was a few years back. I used canned pumpkin and tried to build a graham cracker crust from scratch, and overall it was a disaster. I decided to stick to apple from then on. But this week was a pumpkin week.

It's really hard not to type pumpking.

That's about all I can remember about this week. Other than listening to 99.9 KTYD nonstop. Check it out. It'll change your life.

Honestly. I just went there to gather the link and they're playing the Beatles. And right at midnight there's usually a whole Beatles set, like they can't figure out how best to handle heir sudden lack of a DJ. Now it's playing Queen. Perfect station.

-Steph

Guitar Class

2010-09-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! What a lovely summer this week was. Crazy hot! And so full of adventures.

Me and Carolyn and Jacqi went on a bundt cake adventure to Thousand Oaks, where it was as hot as the sun. I loved it.

And on Monday me and Jacqi went to Rocket Fizz and then to where my band hangs out, and then down to the beach where we touched the mighty Pacific and built a great big pile of sand with a five year old.

I don't even remember the last time I've been to the beach. I mean, more than just looked at it.

Aaand then I wrote another song, added a melody and lyrics to a basic guitar pattern I've been playing all summer. Sent it to Beth and she added backup vocals and some sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet slide accents, and DUDE is this not the best song we've ever written.

It's called Cloudburst, right? I mixed some tracks of rain using the tambourine and the fish tank. Very convincing. But today I tried recording the sound of the hose water hitting things as rain, but the microphone was not cooperating so I'll have to try again tomorrow.

But I did work more on the guitar part and the vocal, which is, like, simple but I really have to try hard to sound a little better than mediocre. Takes a lot of concentration. But I can actually play the guitar AND sing it at the same time, which is a step forward. So it wouldn't be impossible to play live.

Also that day I added the idea of a piano part to another new song, Broovin'. Which is a fun, rockish song, probably our third best. Because guys, these new songs are soooo much better than LIGHT IT UP. You have no idea. ~~and you never will~~

And both me and Beth have been working on our various instruments, from harmonica to slide guitar. I've got some good bluesy sounds going with my harp, and she is wrapping her head around soloing. That's why I have to learn guitar, so that she can play lead and I can play rhythm and it'll all work out.

It's been a very productive week for MDMB.

So guitar class today. Is in a basement of a house up the street. No joke. But the house is a city landmark, and the basement is more of a city event facility that happens to be under this house. I walked there in a beautiful sunset.

There are seventeen people in the class, seven guys and ten girls. The instructor's name I think is Randy, and he does know guitar, but he doesn't expect any of us to (which is an apt assumption. They don't.)

Aside from me, we have:
Confused Dad
Overzealous Mom
Confused Mom
Nine year old Boy
Youth Group Leader Girl
Youth Group Leader Boy
Talkative Uncle
Little Mexican Lady
Dad With Nothing Else Better To Do
Quiet Girl
Blind Girl
College Guitarist
Nine Year Old Electric Guitar Girl
Thinks She Can Play
Confused Middle Schooler
Punk Rock Fifth Grader

A lot of them are so clueless I wonder even why they have guitars. They clearly have never touched them before today. Which is alright, because this class is exactly for them, very very beginner. We learned how to read his little chord notations (the fat string is the sixth string, everybody); Em, A7, A, and E; Camptown Races (of all things) and the E blues scale.

That took an hour and a half.

And while I'm sure most of them were overwhelmed or just keeping up, me and College Guitarist were the ones looking bored the quickest. He's the sort that clearly played in college, but that was 20 years ago. Otherwise, I don't know what he's doing in this beginner's class. I'm not really sure what other people's motivations are, other than the Moms and Dads who just have nothing else better to do, and the kids whose parents want them to be rounded (and the Punk Rock kid who just wants to look like he's playing the guitar).

So it'll be cool. Somebody telling me to practice chord changes. The opportunity to develop calluses.

Guitar Center sent me a coupon for 15% of guitar straps, so I went in today and got a cool Union Jack one. British Invasion represent! But my guitar doesn't fit in the case with the strap on it, so lol. It's better than the Rock Band strap, at any rate.

What fun, music.

-Steph

Them Trees

2010-09-23T22:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Will you believe that I actually accidentally just put "Happy Birthday!" Weirddd.

It was my dad's birthday on Monday, though! I made him an ugly cake, lol. A spice cake with walnut-studded cream cheese frosting. It had three and a half layers. Happy birthday, Dad!

Fall is upon us, and by Fall I mean The Summer I Never Had. Earlier in the week it was rainy type fog, and I was looking forward to the rain. Not to be had. Instead, we have summer. But the sun IS farther away, so it's not like a summer heat, just like, a fall heat. The shade is freezing.

I perfected my spiced lemonade, which is the perfect in-between seasons drink, and you should try some.

Falltime made me into a baker, and today I made ricey crispoes, russian teacakes, and toffee. Dude, how easy is toffee. A stick of butter and some brown sugar (how come you taste so good) and boil it. Delicious.

Yesterday I hung out with Carolyn and fished all her little fish out of the kiddie pool they were living in to put back in the brand new pond. It was quite an adventure. Fish wrangling is harder than you might think.

I also, at some point, watched the first six episodes of Cowboy Bebop with my mom. I do so love that show. All that cowboy and also bebop and also space and also western. Welsh Corgis. Perfect.

Been practicing my blues harmonica and writing songs, so that's coming along.

Oh, so. The trees. I heard scuttlings around above my room, which eventually became known to be rats. Because of this, we got our trees trimmed so the rats would not be able to jump onto our roof anymore.

But.

The tree trimmers.

Destroyed my childhood home.

I can't even talk about it.

The tree in the front? Has exactly 33 leaves. Thirty three.

I just want to ctrl-z this away, but alas, I cannot.

I wish I had never reported the rats.

I have such a burning regret about this.

Great! Peace out.

-Steph

Ladies & Gentlemen

2010-09-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I just got back from a Rolling Stones concert courtesy of Fathom Events, that crazy thing you see when you go to the movies advertising live opera and stuff.

Ladies & Gentlemen....The Rolling Stones is a concert film from two shows back in 1972 when they were touring for the new Exile on Main St. album. They've just remastered it and tonight was like a nation-wide (I dunno about anywhere else in the world) cinema re-release. Quite appropriately, the re-master of Exile has also been recently released. So it's a double flashback.

What a show! On the big screen it's something else. But without the screaming and raving fans and being able to see them close up. Wonderful musicians and performers. Great set list. My theater was pretty full, maybe like 130, 150 people, applauding each song.

There were literally less than ten people my age and younger. Everyone else was 30 and older. Mostly 45 and older. Mostly Mick Jagger's age. But still, imagine you're a 20 year old London kid who likes the blues, and fifty years later your little blues band still draws a crowd in a place like tiny Ventura, California.

Beth saw it, too, up in Oregon. She said there were like eight people all told. Haha.

Second best thing to going to a live Stones show, which I still have hope for, yet.

Been practicing my blues harmonica, or cross harp if I want to sound official. I can do it, just not consistently.

You see, diatonic harmonicas, which is what you're looking at most of the time you see a harmonica, are built to play in one major key. Mine, for example, are all in C. But by shaping the air different when you play, you can bend notes down to flatten them and get "blues" notes outside the key you're playing in. So to play cross harp on a C harmonica, you're playing in G.

Now my dad first gave me a harmonica and a little book titled "Country & Blues Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless" for my tenth birthday. I took to it enough that I learned some songs from the back of the book (I can still play you Camptown Races and You Are My Sunshine at the drop of a hat), and I even overcame stage fright to play Amazing Grace at a fifth grade music night. But I was perpetually stumped by this bending business.

So for 13 years I've played Camptown Races and You Are My Sunshine, and generally misplaced all my harmonicas from time to time. Then here comes along Mick Jagger and Brian Jones and their little blues band the Rollin' Stones, and now I desperately need to play the harmonica.

I set the piano to harmonica one day, armed with the info from a dozen youtube videos, and bent my first note. It only took thirteen years to do it. AND I WILL KEEP ON DOING IT AND NO ONE WILL STOP ME LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

Have a harmonica solo!

Or Champagne and Reefer.

Or of course, Brian Jones on harmonica. I realize now that it was this song I heard playing on Mick Jagger's birthday that first sparked the idea that I might get into the Rolling Stones. Thanks, Buddy Holly!

How about some sweet lap steel guitar from Ronnie Wood?

Or Clapton playing bottleneck?

And if you're wondering why I'm suddenly into the blues, remember this lil' show called Cowboy Bebop. I didn't know it at the time, but that slide guitar and cross harp was burrowing into my soul, just waiting for the right time to bloom.

Well, here we go.

yawn

2010-09-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! So the weather is back to cloudy foggy wintertime, but our few weeks of summer were good while they lasted. Now it's time for pumpkin flavored things and way too many desserts.

I melted some baking chocolate with a touch of milk, cinnamon, and maple extract and threw in some peanuts to make chocolate covered peanut things. Pretty good. Pretzels will be next.

Over Labor Day weekend we drove up to Monterey Bay for a memorial service. I share a great-grandparent with one of the original founders of Zynga, the company that provides you with all your great FarmVille invitations.

Listened to Bob Dylan's first album all the way up and back, wrote a song. Studied James Taylor's Sweet Baby James. Took some pictures. Developed my thoughts on songwriting and other things.

Today Steven came over and we jammed a bit. I learned a new song. Then we went and got ten tacos and watched How I Met Your Mother. It was a good day.

I'm sooooo sleepy because I left my music on all night so I kept waking up every fifteen minutes to hear some song I really liked. It was tiring.

Me and Carolyn and Steven started watching the Evil Dead series. Lolololololol.

Did I tell you Jacqi's back from Korea? She is. Hanging out with them all tomorrow. It'll be epic.

Now I sleep.

Eyy Thursday

2010-09-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Can you believe it's Thursday again? I can.

This week has seen me near the end of my Jagger biography, watch about 14 dozen youtube videos of the Stones, comment on a customer's awesome Stones shirt, dust off my blues harmonica book, and sign up for guitar lessons. And I wrote some blues lyrics for MDMB.

At the thrift store, the magical one that always has what you're looking for, I discovered treasure. A Beach Boys double LP, a greatest hits, I'm sure, in pristine condition. Not even a scratch, and I mean, have you ever seen a record in a thrift store before? This was like, brand new. For a buck ninety!!! !!!!! That's like 12 dollars in savings, say from what it would be in a dusty old record store. I was thrilled.

Next to it I dug out a handful of singles: Clapton's I Shot the Sheriff, B side Give Me Strength; Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' I Love Rock 'N Roll, B side You Don't Know What You've Got; and Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son, B side Questions of My Childhood. 50 cents apiece.

Whuttafind.

That day was actually all around sweet. I parked downtown and then walked all the way up and back, stopping in at the thrift stores, the druggie music store, up to the library (Gimme Shelter and No Direction Home, Stones and Dylan concert/documentaries, respectively), outside of which a homeless man dug my Starfleet shirt, and then down to Rocket Fizz where I got a cherries 'n mint soda. And it was sunny out and generally lovely.

In the thrift stores I was looking for some more pairs of gray jeans and/or corduroys. Them's my fave now. I've also got my eye out for a corduroy jacket? That or a denim jacket that I can spray paint MDMB on the back. Gotta get my gig outfit together, you know.

Let's see, I'll put it this way. The Beatles made me interested in learning music again (specifically the bass); the Rolling Stones have made me interested in being a rock star. Now I'm not saying I'm going to BE a rock star, but there's a fanning of the flames about this little band of ours, about seriously writing songs and playing songs. I would like to be a good bassist. I would like to be able to play guitar. And blues harmonica. Why can't I? So I will.

Gonna go watch Gimme Shelter. Peace out.

-Steph

Like a Rolling Stone

2010-08-26T21:58:00.001-07:00

Happy Thursday! So far this week has been warm and clear and quiet...lovely spring weather. I didn't sign up for three seasons of winter and one of spring. I'm disappointed in you, Ventura. :<

So last Thursday my dad and I made an epic trek across the northern LA area. We had to stop in ... some little place I don't even remember, and then on to Burbank, for his work. Then we got stuck in horrid traffic on the way to Ontario, where I was to meet an online friend in the real life.

(Sorry we were so late, again!)

Which was cute and awkward and fun. But too quickly we were off again, across the street to the Citizen's Business Bank Arena of Ontario!

It was a sorta small place, no more than twice the size of our Event Center at APU. 1.5x the size, more like. So I saw John Mellancamp (yawn) in the flesh. He kept throwing picks to the crowd, but they never made it. I wasn't too impressed with him.

And I was sooooo sleepy. I'd woken up sleepy, and then the long long car ride, and having to sit through an hour of that racket....by the time Bob came on at like 9:20, I was almost gone. I really don't have too many memories of it, because I was just concentrating on staying awake and focusing on making him out. The air was really dry and I kept having to blink (also from being tired) so it was like I couldn't see anything clearly.

It was really like trying to stay awake in class. Staying awake is the end result, but you don't get anything for your efforts.

Bob was really growly, and his band very loud. His harmonica playing was brief but to the point. He strapped on a guitar for maybe three numbers but otherwise rocked out on the keyboards. He wore a hat and concentrated on the show. I think it wore him out.

There was a guy down in front of us dancing his little Dylan heart out. He was probably high.

There were two songs I know I didn't know, and the rest it took a long time for me to figure out what they were supposed to be. Some of the longer ones (Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again, Tangled Up in Blue, Like a Rolling Stone) were parsed down to a more bite sized length. I really dug the one with the banjo, whatever that was.

So it was pretty exciting, and now I've seen one of my heroes with my very own eyes. This isn't my video, but a lot of that concert is up on Youtube. Here's Like a Rolling Stone, which was one of the last songs, I think.

On the way down, I DJ'd the radio, presetting my dad's stations to all the classic rock/oldies I could find. At least three Rolling Stones songs played. "I think I want to get into the Stones next," I remarked off hand.

I think it was because of the Dancing in the Street video? I was like, who is this Mick Jagger, really? I don't even know how it started.

The main reason last week's concert seems like forever ago (srsly, it was only seven days??) is that since then I've fallen super super hard for the Rolling Stones. I mean like, as instantaneously as for the Beatles. I'm even halfway through my Mick Jagger biography already.

It's not that I love them more than the Beatles--the age old question of who's better is just completely unfair. They're just too different to compare. But I am totally like, where were you all my life?! We've hit it off real well.

Ugh, I cleaned out some drawers today and threw out a lot of stuff, but all the stuff I have yet to organize is sitting on my bed. How will I sleep?!

Going to sign up for a guitar class being taught just up the street. It'll be on Thursdays, how cute is that? I've been strumming my new acoustic quite a bit, but I really have no idea what to do with it. So I'll go get myself taught. It'll help with song writing?

Me and Beth had a productive day recently where we each spontaneously generated a song. MDMB, we're gonna be big. Bigger than the Beatles?

Here's a crazy thought: There were no gummi bears in America until the 80s. Madness.

-Steph

Cold Irons Bound

2010-08-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday!

Today is just a regular, old Thursday.

Woke up. Got dressed. Looked at the fish. Did laundry. Poked around the internet. Later I'm going out to Ontario to meet an online friend.

And while I'm out there, I might as well stop in and see Bob Dylan.

~~and John Mellancamp but who's counting~~

Me and my dad are going to my very first concert ever! The only honest to goodness band I've ever seen live was Something Like Silas/Future of Forestry and that was at camp/a coffee shop my friend was playing at/the courtyard in front of my dorm.

Bob Dylan is like, 69 years old. That's not gonna stop him. I'll see if I can get a picture of him, but our seats are terrible. It's gonna be great.

I was gonna link ya my faves, but they're impossible to find these days. Someone musta made a youtube sweep.

Have this instead!!!!!!!!

DANCING IN THE STREET

I can't stop watching this. It's like...the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Okay I gotta go get readys to go. I'll see you next week!!

-Steph

Boring stats post

2010-08-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Today I found what most certainly has to be relative of Donnie's. It was like, the same cat. Only cat-shaped. (not whale shaped) It was really bizarre.

So let's talk about how tv controls my musical tastes, or else I'll talk about cat clones all day.

I don't mean TV, but if I keep saying "narrative media" I'm gonna keep sounding arrogant. Narrative visual media. TV, video games. Internet? Narrative internet? Hulu? Whatever. Movies. Anyway, Primary interest: Visual media (tv movies games); secondary interest: Music.

Let's look at my Last.fm stats for my top 15 artists.

1 - The Beatles
2 - Bear McCreary
3 - Linkin Park
4 - Kunihiko Ryo
5 - Tokio HOtel
6 - Nobuo Uematsu
7 - Micheal Giacchino
8 - Queen
9 - The Hoosiers
10 - Panic at the Disco
11 - Shigeru Umebayashi
12 - Risa Ohki
13 - Nobuo Uematsu (added with #6 and he'd actually be #3)
14 - Ikimono Gakari
15 - Billy Idol

Okay, how many of those are composers for TV, movies, and/or video games? 6. (2, 4, 6, 7, 11...12--but she's the recording artist of Uematsu's arrangements)

How many of these did I get into from video games? Beatles and Tokio Hotel from Rock Band. Uematsu did the Final Fantasy scores. Ohki Risa sang some albums of vocalizations of the previous.

From Youtube videos? Hoosiers (Heroes fanvid, so TV caused this, too) and Billy Idol. (White Wedding literal video)

Movies? Queen. (Shaun of the Dead ftw) Shigeru Umebayashi. (House of Flying Daggers) The Beatles - Hard Day's Night really kicked off my Beatlemania. Giacchino - see below v

TV? McCreary - BSG. Giacchino - Alias, Lost, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Speed Racer, Star Trek, Up etc etc.

Anime? Ryo - Juuni Kokuki. Ikimono Gakari did a couple intro songs for Naruto or Bleach and I ended up downloading everything they've ever done.

The only two honest bands in here are Linkin Park and Panic, both of which I leeched off of Carolyn. All said and done, 86% of my most-listened to artists were introduced to me by visual media. And 14% comes from the trusted opinion of the best friend.

How about most-listened-to songs?

1 - Nakushita Kotoba - No Regret Life -- Naruto ending song
2 - We Used to Be Friends - The Dandy Warhols -- Veronica Mars theme song
3 - ALONES - Aqua Timez -- BLEACH opening song
4 - Rolling Star - Yui -- BLEACH opening song
5 - Sen no Yoru wo Koete - Aqua Timez
6 - Ketsui no Asa ni - Aqua Timez
7 - Kanashimi wo Yasashisa ni - little by little -- Naruto opening song
8 - Edge of the Ocean - Ivy -- from Beth
9 - Re:START - Surface -- Yakitate!! Japan ending song
10 - Killer -- The Hoosiers -- the song used in the Heroes fanvid
11 - ALONES (TV size) - Aqua Timez -- I really love this song
12 - Sora wo torimodoshia hi - ShakkaZombie -- I downloaded this because it says it was from Cowboy Bebop. I'm pretty sure it's not, but I still love it
13 - Everything Goes Dark - The Hoosiers
14 - Aru Machi no Gunjou - Asian Kung-Fu Generation -- this band did a bunch of Naruto/Bleach/FMA openings/endings.
15 - Another Night - Heavens -- research into "emo music" impulse download lol

The anime-heavy influence here is that when I got these songs, a few summers ago, I was listening to probably 90% anime songs 10% Linkin Park. Those three Aqua Timez songs are the ONLY Aqua Timez songs I have, and I really like their band, so I over-listened.

These days, especially +Beatles +Beatles affiliates, my listening is much more watered down. Spread out among many many artists and songs. Like, The Beatles are my #1 artist because they've got 250 songs that I've listened to 12 times each. Aqua Timez has four songs I've listened to a total of 334 times. Timez.

The band Cage the Elephant is #9 out of everything I've listened to in the last 3 months just because their song Ain't No Rest for the Wicked was used in Borderlands. I've listened to that 24 times.

So pretty much before the Beatles, I was just listening to anime/video game/movie music. I'm so geekish.

I was playing Red Dead Redemption today, and realized I needed the soundtrack to that sucker, too. Remember, I played you that song? That cowboy song? Yes. Anime/video game/movie/tv music is a good genre of music. It's music that has a story, and more than anything I need a story.

-Steph

ps
I refurbished this boring stats post with a bunch of youtube links! Hooray for visual aids!

Bounty at the Fair

2010-08-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! You know how much I love the fair? So much. It's like the AX/Brigadoon in that it's the same year after year and it's like it must always be there, somewhere, waiting. In your heart, perhaps.

I entered 12 things into the fair this year, and placed first with two, second with one. The rest got honorable mention or nothing. :< One got a special award for being such a sad poem. I didn't write it to be sad, but now I know.

My sister is here for a bit, and we went on dollar opening day. But she's sick, so we didn't stay too long. Overpriced slushies and I got a hotdog wrapped in a potato.

I'm writing this on her insanely small laptop, small as in, even I dwarf it. Insanely small, like I said.

A topic I've been wanting to tell you about is how my music/visual media curve works, but I'm so tired it will have to wait another week. It's how most of my musical influences (and also some non-musical) usually--or, generally, come from some sort of exposure to a visual media. Like how I got into the Beatles through Rock Band and A Hard Day's Night, and Queen from Shaun of the Dead.

Non musical include: I drink cocoa with mint from a Star Wars Book (which came from the movies itself), and ...there was something else, I forget now. I first ate curry rice because of an episode of Naruto where it was featured. Etc.

I'm sleepy because last night was inventory, 10 pm to 3. Yay. But hey, no customers, so great.

Been drumming all week on Lego Rock Band. It's such an active activity. AND I did The Final Countdown on Expert bass just earlier today, and it just about killed me. But I saved the aliens who signed Freddie Mercury, so it was epic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt_zum97kjE This is a video I like. 1964 Rolling Stones covering Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. Also so epic. Also so much more rocky than Buddy's. It makes me smile.

Okay, good night.

-Steph

Back to Movies

2010-07-29T22:16:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-15T23:50:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-07-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

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

There and Back Again

2010-06-24T22:39:00.001-07:00

Happy Thursday! Yesterday we returned to "sunny" California from tall wide Colorado. What beautiful summer weather east of the Rockies has! Warm AND green. This desert-raised mind boggles.

Let me recount to you one or a couple adventures. It all started when we got to the airport. Our gate was 44F...there was 43, and 45 was across the hall....oh, there's escalators down to 44...no. Escalator down to the street. Where a tram was waiting to take us across the tarmac to the "remote terminal" which housed gate 44.

On our way there, we stopped to let planes cross in front of us. I was afraid we'd end up like that cop car in Casino Royale that gets picked up in the engine wake.

But we made it to our proper gate. Shortly, we were walking out onto the runway towards our plane. We were flying on a commuter flight subsidiary of American Airlines. American Eagle, it was called, and aptly so; our plane was the size of one.

"Mom, I had a plane like this when I was a kid," I said, "I think it's in a drawer somewhere."

In any case, it seemed likely that once we all had boarded, someone was coming along to pick it up and throw it to Denver.

We had seats A and B, which, as we soon discovered, were across the aisle from each other. C was the far window seat. The stewardess was angry. I saw the Grand Canyon.

Right near the far side of the Rockies, we hit some awful turbulence. There was one dip significantly comparable to the first drop into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. My Zune was playing Linkin Park's In the End, and when I noticed I was all "Eff that," and tossed on a one-two punch of Third Day's All the Heavens and Harrison's All Things Must Pass.

I had started My Sweet Lord for good measure, but then the angry stewardess made me put it away and shortly we were arrived alive.

I have four nieces: Ainsley loves dragons, Liberty loves frogs, Melody loves princesses, and Cassidy has this crazy wide-eyes stare at everything. They are 10, 8, 6, and four months.

Oh the adventures we had. Sunday we went to church and had a dedication for the lil one, then we had cake and Kevin barbecued. That was some gentle gentle cloudlike tri tip.

We hiked up a mountain and tried not to fall off of it. We went to Sonic and then saw Toy Story 3 (I fought so very hard not to cry. If I had been in less scrutinizing company I probably woulda bawled through the end).

On one day we went to a candy factory in Denver, a tea factory in Boulder, a cheese import store in Longmont, and a pirate restaurant in Lakewood.

We visited the Air Force Academy, toured the chapel (s ) there. We wrapped everything up with a visit to a park that was unrecognizable to me.

It was a great time. It was summery and lovely and freewheeling and they had a cat that was obliging. Oh, and the visiting was fun too.

But alas, we had to return. So we boarded our Matchbox plane and headed for home. (Our steward was not angry--but he had to tilt his head to keep his faux-hawk from scraping the top of the cabin) This flight was ridiculously smooth compared to the first. I played much Professor Layton. On our descent we passed over downtown, and you could see the LED displays from the Nokia theater.

And then we drove home and I slept forever. The end.

I'll be on my way to the AX a week from this morning. Wish me luck.

-Steph

Hi thur, Summer!

2010-06-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! On days like these it's hard to believe that there's ever a bad day. It's sunny and the AX is coming and there are beautiful tangerines at the fruit stand.

Yesterday I sat outside and painted my Speed Racer shirt. The inside of his collar and the cuffs of his shirt are white, while the rest is blue. SO I PAINTED IT. Earned me a right-arm sun burn (lefty gets driving sun and is a-ok) and mighty stiffness in the legs. Who knew sitting could be so strenuous??

I also managed to paint my white costume gloves yellow, so now I just need to acquire some sort of loafer and find my red scarf and detach and paint the new G on the shirt. Oh, and I guess buy a whole pack of red socks. And get a hair cut.

So, yes. Almost done. Clearly.

Today I supported local businesses, which felt nice. I went out to the fruit stand, (six tangerines for about a dollar) circled around downtown to Rocket Fizz (Dublin Dr Pepper and a Sprecher Cherry Cola) and then swung by Shamsi's Deli for a half curry chicken salad sandwich and a side of Greek salad ($5.95, if the "too pricey!" reviews scare you off).

This week I spent a couple solid days in Red Dead Redemption, which is like Oblivion only cooler. Except apparently it's not like Oblivion, it's Grand Theft Auto in the Wil' West. But there's not much incentive (for me) to do any grand theft...equine, so to me it's more like Oblivion in that I'm running around the world doing good for people and hunting animals.

It also has a stronger narrative than Oblivion, and a tidier side quests system. Although, to be fair, Oblivion has so many more side quest options that I have yet to properly engage in its narrative. As in Oblivion gave me the "further the story!" quest and so far I've ignored it. Whereas in Red Dead, skinning coyotes is only interesting for a while, and then you're seeking out the next story mission.

Although I did spend a couple of hours (in-game days) cleaning up at a poker table in Mexico. Highly satisfying.

AND after a significant turn in the plot, it gifted me with this song echoing out over the twilight desert trail south of the border: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IkvAb6THQY . Instead of spurring my horse on to my destination, I moseyed along as night set slowly around me and this haunting cowboy song whispered my predicament...."it's so far, so far away"...

A little while later, I threw a fire bomb onto a boat, and running back along the dock I missed the turn and fell into the river and insta-died. :<

I accidentally watched some romantic comedies, and had my disapproval of the genre reaffirmed. When in Rome and today Leap Year. The KBell was disappointing--the script quality fell far short of its comedic cast. They were predominately cult actors; people who do their thing and do it well, but perhaps this movie would have been improved by hiring no names and therefore minimizing audience expectations of it? As for Leap Year..............I knew in my soul it was a waste of time going into it...and yet still I was surprised at how right I was.

Next time you hear from me, I'll have been to Colorado and back. Try not to miss me.

-Steph

Yeah I'm feelin burned out

2010-06-10T22:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Dear Thursday, why are you so cold? Why do you make me sad? Boo, Thursday, go ruin someone else's....Thursday.

I was watching Nero Wolfe today, but it failed to hold my attention, which was a tragedy because that was all I had expected from it. But I know being in a bad mood is silly, 'cause if you really wanted, you could just stop being in a bad mood. You know, by just not being grumpy anymore. But then I went to work so that didn't happen.

Why is it all the negative people come in when you're feeling negative? :<

You know how introvert/extrovert doesn't necessarily mean that you're shy/outgoing? It's more about how you spend your energy. Like an extrovert gets charged by being with people and can get down and out by hisself, while an introvert gets tired by socializing and needs to be alone to recharge.

We took the test ourselves, in a writing class, and I scored one point higher for introvert. As in, just about as right-down-the-center as you can get (but slightly introverted).

So I feel like right now, I'm getting only the side effects of both sides, tired and dejected no matter what I do or who I see. Or how much I don't do or see.

There was one night this week were I went to sleep at 10:30! And then I got up at 7:30. It was pretty intense.

Luckily, I'm going to Colorado to visit my brother in about a week, and not too long after is the AX, so those both should be a nice change of pace to knock this.

The other day I put an epic tale about a three-legged rat to verse. My first story to song composition. And I have first-draft lyrics for a love/zombie song, and the first verse for an alien abduction song--me and Beth wrote that yesterday. And then she played me a bit she's been working on, and then I ruined it with lyric ideas that turned it also into a love song.

You know, to balance out the song about a clown with a clock for a face.

Which she painted, btw. I'll scan it or something. It's excellence.

Also yesterday we went to a fruit stand and the radio was going, and then the DJ was all "and Jason Mraz and so-and-so wrote that song back and forth in emails" and we were all "our technique has been validated!"

There were some good tangerines and strawberries to be had there, as well.

Gonna try to make my own peanut butter and nutella and pickles and mayo. I'll keep you posted.

-Steph

Origami

2010-06-03T23:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! It looked almost like it was going to rain today, but it's all clear now. If it had rained, I woulda been severely freaked out, 'cause all I've done in the last 24 hours is play (and beat) Heavy Rain. Here, watch a trailer to see how intense it is: TRAILER.

It's like the length and story quality of a tv miniseries, but it's INTERACTIVE 'cause it's a video game. Where your answers and actions (and reflexes) can drastically alter the outcome of the story. By my estimate, it took me eight or nine hours to get through it once...now I'm doing it again to see what other paths I can take.

Let me just say though, I've never fought my way out of so many death traps in my life. So intense, this game.

Let's talk curry. And, as always, you know I mean curry rice. Except this time I didn't make any rice 'cause I wanted it as filling for meat buns. Which I guess are curry buns. (But it was also real good with the French bread)

One time ago, when I was learning about curry, I read something to the effect that in home made curry sauces, apple and/or mango is used to enrich the flavor. My first experiment was to cut up about a fourth of an apple and let it dissolve into the curry mix--but at the time I was still buying the "mild" flavor packets, and the result was that tiny bit of apple cut nearly all curry flavor. So since then I've put some apple into the medium flavor, and it turns out great every time.

And I thought, wouldn't it be cute to use like, cranberry sauce? And use turkey for the meat? Thematic, right? Yesterday I tossed in two boxes of craisins and a slice of cranberry sauce (although I used three hamburger patties worth of ground beef).

It was a thick slice, and the end result is that it's suspiciously sweet. Not too sweet, just, you suspect it might be sweet. You have a slight suspicion. I think a half-thick slice would have been more appropriate, although on the other hand if I had used turkey I think it would have pulled together quite nicely. It would have been something done specifically right rather than something else done slightly wrong.

Curry curry curry, you are my loved one.

That's all, today.

-Steph

An ending no other show could pull off

2010-05-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I don't remember the last time I worked night on a Thursday (ever?!), so I'm getting this out the way at a young hour.

The whole right side of my face hurts. From my ear to my teeth. What is this? ~~a center for ants?!~~ It's making me a grouchy old man.

Which probably shouldn't be the mood I'm writing in. Oh well. Through sleet and snow and that.

As Facebook reported, the series finale of LOST had me in tears. Which surprised me as much as it may surprise you. And I think it was less about what was happening in the end--more about that it was just The End, period. But I'll admit it got a bigger reaction out of me than the BSG finale did, at any rate.

Speaking of, let's revisit the end of BSG for a moment. That was an epic sci-fi-action-drama whose finale represented that amalgam well. As in, a sci-fi flavored, action flavored drama. The finale was not about answering mysteries, it was about leaving these characters in satisfying and meaningful ways. Its character-driven plot assured that while, yes, action was all UP in here, each twist and turn was directed by the desires and intentions of the characters. So that while there were still questions left hanging at the end, the emotional impact of the finale was so resounding that you forgot about all this sci-fi stuff. It became trivial.

LOST followed this example to an extent. By the last few episodes I knew that they couldn't possibly answer every question (even though they started throwing explanations out like candy...and forgot some mysteries entirely--but they did that in BSG, too) I think the major explanation about the Island was designed to cover most of these questions, and I guess it sorta does. But it doesn't mean that this explanation doesn't have more questions of its own! I wanted, at this point, to stop caring about the Island and focus more on what was going to happen to these people, but I couldn't quite.

For the first time, I think the flashes in this season stunted the storytelling. Whereas early on, the flashbacks were necessary to round out these characters and set some mysteries/coincidences in motion, then the flashforwards were about raising interest in the journey from A to B and filling in the gaps once time shifts settled down...............the flash "sideways"...s of the last season presented us with a poorly established mystery that eats up half of the season. When they could have spent 100% of each episode answering real mysteries. But they only had a portion, and that's why I feel like near the end they started rushing storylines. The countdown was on minutes left in the show, not any dramatically concocted device.

That being said, the flash sidewayses did allow this show to have one of --no, the most unique series end that I've ever witnessed. It's not an ending any other show could easily pull. Or could ever pull, I mean to assert. It was an ending fully tailored to the show, completely original and --can I say surprising? I know some people called it well in advance, but I'll be honest and I was still trying to figure out how these storylines were going to connect right up to the big reveal. I mean, I knew something was up, but I didn't dare guess.

And what I mean by original is that the ending was rooted in the LOST-specific cast, journey those characters went on, and the "flash" narrative nature of the show. It was an ending dictated by the very foundations of the show itself, on and off the screen, and for that I commend it.

So now that that's over, it leaves me actively watching...what? Flashforward? I caught up on the Office but only online, I didn't watch any of it live this season. I didn't even see a single episode of Chuck or 30 Rock or HIMYM. Heroes has been cancelled and I don't even care. There had better be some good sci-fi hitting the airwaves next fall.

'Cause Flashforward sure ain't gonna cut it.

-Steph

Holy Batman, Batman

2010-05-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! We are watching Sky Captain, which is cute for a number of reasons. One is its psuedo-steam-noir WWII + giant robots type style. Exactly the sort of setting I want a story to take place in. The other is of course its pioneering of the acting entirely on green screen. Quite a good effort for the age! Consider how the technology went from this to Avatar in six years. Kinda intense.

Beth is over again, and we have pieces of six songs I think. Seven? LIGHT IT UP, The Lime Song, Bridge to Nowhere, all have words and just need to be polished up. Trapezoid and Mockingbird are instrumentals, variations on D chords, really. Um and then there's a punk rockish song and then another rockish. And there's two more sets of lyrics that don't have any music at all! So that's coming along.

You know what would be horrible? A clown with a clock for a face.

You know what's great? Frank Gorshin as the Riddler. Watch this episode! Death in Slow Motion. It's beyond amazing.

Speaking of superheroes and/or Gywneth Paltrow, Iron Man 2 is action packed. And funny! The plot was more of a straight shot than the first one (whose first act was bogged down in the kidnapping arc) and was full of cool and hip and entertaining episodes. Well cast, too, the new parts (and one of the old). Definitely approve of the Cheadle.

We also hung out with Carolyn one day and played Pokemon Rumble and Speed Racer game! And then we went to Thai food which was sorta amazing. At least mine was.

McArtrey had some screws loose. Literally, since he is equipment. The plate holding the output jack to the side of the guitar kept sliding around, unscrewing the jack until it didn't even connect anymore. So we took him to the guitar doctor who applied some glue and fixed it. And then I said "I don't know if it's me, but it's kinda twangy" and it turned out it wasn't me and he fixed that, too. So now it sounds like a real bass and I'm glad we didn't record anything before I got that adjusted because now I sound a thousand times better.

Rest assured recordings are on the horizon! As Donnie says, any day meow.

-Steph

Coming Soon....

2010-05-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Oh Thursday, what is there to say? It's been another week, another Inventory, another band recording session. We tried recording today but there were some technical difficulties and then some performance difficulties so we'll try again later.

But we went to Busy Bee, armed with like 8 quarters, and loaded up the jukebox with songs of our choosing. All Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. A little Elvis for fun. Did you know how much food they have there!? I feel like I've never even looked at the menu before. And cute dinners that include food and coffee/tea/soft drink and a dessert for like $11!! I will be going there more.

Me and Beth had a lil photo sesh down at these rocks where our band hangs out. It was really windy and sad. But people had graffitied peace signs and love and happy faces all over the rocks, so we felt welcomed. And then a pterodactyl ate some dogs.

Can you believe I haven't seen Iron Man 2 yet? I cannot. I mean, I've only been waiting for that movie since the first one came out. But I guess I'm just off movies lately. I did finally see Legion, though, which, as low as my expectations were, still managed to disappoint. Even more disappointment than Twilight 2.

WE WATCHED SOME BRADY BUNCH THIS MORNING. There were lines, like jokes, that were sooooo .... scripted. And they sounded like examples given to me in writing school. Like, the proper way to structure a joke. It made me remember how old my professors were. They need to go out and watch something modern. Like Legion. Good jokes in that.

Not really.

Yalright we're off to write songs. You'll just have to wait for this one we have. I've photoshopped up an album cover (and back) so there's that to look forward to, as well.

I'm lobbying for us to sit down and just record some of the covers we know, just so there's something to post to the facebook page. But we'll see. We're a little loopy at this hour. Wish us luck.

-Steph

MDMB

2010-05-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! I’m sitting in the parking lot on West Campus!! In my car, not anywhere skeevy. Beth is here; this is her computer. I was going to use the computer lab, as per usual, but Beth said the Dead Sea Scrolls were in there.

“What, it’s not like they took the computers out and installed scrolls,” I said.

“You’d be surprised,” said she.

So here we are. CSN&Y is playing gently on the stereo, there’s a best of Clapton album waiting in Beth’s car, we screened the demo of our song for Megan, and it seemed to go okay. Oh hey. Have I told you?

You know how I said that me and Beth are in a band? MDMB? Minor Delta Major Bravo? Well we are. And not just in a “lol a band” sense, I mean we’re writing a song and playing it and recording it and making it sound wonderful. And by wonderful I mean legitimately legit. When it’s polished it’ll go up on youtube etc.

In the meantime you can become a fan of our page on Facebook. Just search MDMB, or go to one of our profiles. Be caught up on all our latest news!

And not like this is suddenly our careers and we’re going to get signed and make a million dollars as rockstars. But we have instruments and we are putting them to use. And for three month old musicians, we don’t sound half band. You probs don’t believe me, but you’ll see. Not like we’re out to turn the music industry on its head, but I think our output is a lot better than you might expect from us.

At least, I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I wrote the lyrics late one morning, scanned and emailed them to Beth. A while later, she sends me a demo she recorded on her computer, putting a melody and chords behind it. It was shockingly good. So I added a bass part and sent it back and so on and so forth, both of us adding something or changing something and generally furthering the recording process. And never once were we in the same room together! We are now, though, and we’ll probably play through it live, which will be fun. But overall, this song writing process is pretty entertaining. I can’t wait to do more.

So Megan moved to Glendale, and I had two days off, so that’s why I’m here. Yesterday we drove around Glendale and saw her apartment and then we went to Pasadena and found Beth and went to A’float. And then we went back to get my car from Megan’s, and in order to get out of her parking spot, I literally did a 15-point turn. It was the funniest event of ever.

Then I crashed at Beth’s where we laughed ourselves to sleep. And we wrote our next song, the B side of our first single. Look for it!

Today we drove some more and had some coffee and Beth had TWO finals. And Megan got stuck in traffic for ever. But then we looked at Ikea and went to Legends, which is like mandatory.

So that’s about it. Song writing and socializing. Quite a bit of driving. Yes! Maybe we’ll world-premiere our song next Thursday??

-Steph

Lord McArtrey

2010-04-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! This week is still cold and windy and what is up with that?! I can has summertiem? kthxbai.

On Friday I picked up my very own Hofner violin shaped bass, affectionately christened Lord McArtrey. At first he was a little standoffish and particular, but we've warmed to each other in the course of the week. What a mellow sound he holds within. And so accommodating to my limited grasp! A perfect match.

Somewhere late last week I fit in three movies and several hours of Bioshock 2. The movies were equally dystopian: 12 Monkeys, Enemy at the Gates, ....oh, and 20 Years After, but now I remember I didn't even watch that one. The the ones I did see, they were good. As for the Bioshock sequel, it's really more of the same. Which is great if you liked the first one.

Beth came and visited Tues and Weds. We jammed, we ate pitas, we went to Rocket Fizz (accidentally identified as "Hot Fuzz"), we walked all the way down to the river (it was very cold and I spilled my cherry soda and my littlest toe hurt), and the next day we Rock Banded and discovered a cute and cheap record shop. I helped tote a stereo!

Yesterday was also my mom's birthday! Now she is the ripe old age of fourteen. Congrats, mom! High school's gonna be the best days of your life.

I made Italian dinnertimes. The meatballs did not hold their shape, but they sure were flavored. Quite timely I ordered this British miniseries "Lost in Austen" for my mom, and it arrived and we watched it yesterday. This modern type girl sort of exchanges places with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, and then she mucks up the story all kinds. It was great. I recommend it, especially to a P&P fan.

I rented the Jane Austen Book Club today, but we ended up just watching the Keira Knightly P&P instead. My favorite book. (Yes, I love cooking, sewing, and Pride & Prejudice)

Oh I guess also the other big thing this week was that that fool Donnie got hisself stuck up in the tree again. THREE DAYS he whines about it. Finally we borrowed a ladder and someone to climb it and the fool was coerced down. The highlight was, after Josh managed to pluck him from the tree, Donnie immediately put his little arms around the next nearest branch and continued to do that all the way down.

But I'm glad to report he's back to stretching and rolling as expected.

Flashforward continues to make me want to do violence towards the first thing I can physically overpower. They think they're sooooo clever. Ugh. Get a grip. James Callis is a pleasant surprise, but at this point his role is that of an unlocked liquor cabinet on the Titanic.

-Steph

Winter Redux

2010-04-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! It's also Earth Day, which is, like, wonderful. I'm glad someone's worried about sustaining our ecology, even if it's not necessarily me. I like living here, so, yeah. Hooray for Earth.

Haven't had too many culinary adventures lately, so this week caught up a bit on that front. This week has been rainy and cold and windy and sad, so Tuesday told me to make matzo ball soup, which is my fave.

Hey, why not a Greek salad, too? Make it a Mediterranean day? So then I looked up how to make gyro type meat, and semi succeeded at it. And tzatziki sauce? Just dump some garlic and cucumber into some yogurt!! So that's what I've been eating for days.

Today's weather (plus the subliminal message from Restaurant City) screamed hot cross buns! I used this recipe, and they're pretty good. Not quite as spicy/flavorful as I imagined, so I might put more cinnamon etc. next time, but they were pretty easy to make and turned out alright. (I also squeezed some juice from the lemon into the frosting, too.) I'm not much for baking, but if I don't kill the yeast it usually works out.

Since there was a lot of down time while letting it rise, I swung by work and picked up some things to watch.....ended up putting Spinal Tap in. Haha. I liked it! Which is silly since I've seen two or three of their following mockumentaries and wasn't particularly won over. Maybe I need to see them again? Maybe because there was so much Beatles references? (their first song was about a train numbered 919)

Guitar Center mailed me a coupon to get $50 off a purchase over $349, so I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go pick up a Hofner violin bass tomorrow. !!!!!!!!!!!!! If they have one. I hoooooooooooope soooooooooooooo.

I found a Ringo song I actually like. I don't know why, but I was muddling about in his solo career and found this gem from 2005. FREE DRINKS. It's fun.

That's all I have to share! I had two cups (like four cups, giant mug) of coffee with me buns, and even though it was decaf, I'm feeling its placebo effects. So I hope you have a good night! Mine will be a long time coming.

-Steph

(ps: spellcheck suggested "Hefner")

Blast from the Past

2010-04-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday!!! Now if you'll let me, I will share with you, via metaphor, an experience I had late last night.

Pretend that when you were little, there was a girl who lived on your street that you played with quite often. But while you were still of a tender age, this friend up and moved away, leaving you with distinct but limited memories of your grand times together.

Later, when you're an adult, you have a buddy who has on occasion told you stories about this cousin of his. Like about how she's influenced his life and the cool things she's done and whatever. You come to regard this cousin as a pretty remarkable person.

Then one day your cousin says that she's gonna be in town, would you like to meet her? Of course you would, she's like your buddy's hero.

So you walk in the door, not knowing what to expect even though these stories have built her up in your mind (and you're afraid just a little that perhaps it was all talk), and before you can even think about what's happening, the overwhelming certainty hits you that this is not the first time you've met.

You recognize her. You're not meeting her, you're seeing her again. You know her. And suddenly you have the backlog of second hand information plus this new first hand observation tacking onto your distinct yet limited memories because this is the girl you grew up with.

This girl's name, ladies and gentlemen, is Layla.

That would be, of course, Eric Clapton's (of Derek and the Dominos) "Layla." How much have I heard about this song in the past few months, or since Beatlemania hit? Written for/about Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's wife, it comes up, you know? And it's like, Clapton, whose legend looms large to begin with.

I came across this phrase last night: "the unmistakable riff of 'Layla,'" and suddenly wondered just how unmistakable it was. Had I heard it before, perhaps, and just not known who it was by? Would it actually be as great as stuff by Clapton is supposed to be? So I manned up and punched it into youtube and in the first second of the song I literally gasped. I knew that riff.

Another story. My brother had a silly old Mac (although at the time certainly it was in its prime), upon which were a number of silly old computer games. The best one, was, of course, Tetris. (It also had Welltris, which was like, Soviet themed 3D Tetris)

I played this Tetris quite a bit, back before I was better than my brother at it. At certain line amounts you would go up a level, the background would change, and things would speed up a notch. I remember level 5 or 6 was blue and very pretty, but a highly rare sight. Part of why I play Tetris so fast is because in this version, if you weren't pressing on the down arrow when the piece landed, you didn't get any points. So I always send my pieces straight to the bottom, or else I feel like the move wasn't worth it.

But the best part about this Tetris, however, was its soundtrack. There was a loop, probably only two, three minutes at the most, made up of a bunch of audio clips. My brother had constructed this loop, through what means remains a mystery, but every time you played Tetris, this is what you heard.

There was a whole section of background music from the anime Ranma 1/2, which was always my favorite section. I think included in there was a portion of the gamelan riff of Tetsuo's theme from Akira (the part you hear whenever they're looking at Tetsuo's readout in the movie. I had a similar Layla experience when I saw Akira for the first time.) At some point everything stopped and John Cleese announced, "And now for something completely different."

There was another Monty Python clip in there, from Holy Grail, (in the video at 1:21). And I know the riff from Sweet Home Alabama featured...maybe it was even the initial clip? I feel like I'm missing some others, but these are the ones that still stand out.

Those, and, as you may have guessed by now, the opening riff from Layla. So, yes, I suppose that it IS that unmistakable. But it's also got this insane little, um, what to call it....it's near to my heart, but only for the reason that it was liked by my 15 year old brother enough to be included in a medley to play Tetris by.

If there's any that you remember putting in there, Kevin, do share. I miss that game so much. That computer's long since been thrown away. :<

Speaking of memory lane, we were searching down old kids shows of which we had vague recollections, the crown jewel of them all being this fine video. Yeah. I watched that in my formative years. Oh, the 90s, what have you done to us?!

Segue. You know how history is so awesome? Like things happen, which cause other things to happen and then everything works out in one specific way? This is also of interest when it comes to story telling, but with history it's so much more epic. Imagine this:

If a boy named Klaus Voorman had not met a girl named Astrid Kirchherr, the Beatles as we know them would not exist.

Because, if he had not known her, then, after tracking down the source of rock 'n roll music echoing into the Reeperbahn, he would not have invited her to go with him next time. Then she would not have met Stu--Stu would not have met them! The French existentialist haircut would not be introduced and re-introduced to the lads from Liverpool, or to the world a few years later. Maybe Stu would have stayed with the band instead of leaving--maybe they would have been more affected by his death or maybe he wouldn't have died at all! In either case, the musical tension between Paul and Stu would have kept up.......................

Things would have been different--the WORLD would have been different, had two German youngsters not met. Crazy. Everyone has a place in the puzzle, no?

-Steph

Stuart Sutcliffe

2010-04-08T21:13:00.001-07:00

Happy Thursday! What on earth am I going to tell you about today?

I am sitting in incensey darkness, listening to the Beatles Anthology 2 on these monster new headphones I bought for free and which block out even the sound of me typing. I'm eating lemonheads from a bag labeled Old Fashioned Penny Candy that I purchased for 99 cents a week ago, and I think the price discrepancy is just fine given how long they've lasted.

What sort of careers can be found that combine history and entertainment? As in, entertainment history? As in, I freakin' love reading the Beatles story over and over, and about the 40s-60s in general, and I love film as well as music.

Give me a topic along those lines, and I'll present you with an essay. Really. I will. I love researching when the subject is interesting.

Maybe not even just, what, critical writing (which I did come to like, in my late college years), but maybe nonfiction, uh, narrative. I just wrote a Beatles fic--epitome of dorkdom, I'm full aware--based on several accounts of true events. Maybe I could write the next Nowhere Boy.

Writing about real people, which I'm pretty sure I've never done before--hold up, unless you count the one featuring my roommates and Sylar--is similar to regular fanfiction in that there are still distinct personalities and types of events you need to understand how to present accurately. With regular fanfiction you have a lot more leeway because those characters aren't going to come after you for getting it wrong; not to mention the fact that they were designed to be characters with specific recognizable (and repeatable) quirks.

But I've always been pretty intense about "getting it right," and not being, as we say, "out of character." For a lot of anime, I refused to write anything until I finished the show, just out of fear that any idea I might have in the meantime would end up being proven non-canonical by events I hadn't seen yet.

That's right, fanfiction requires research! You can't just plop down and write whatever you want! If you're just going to make up whatever you want, why not just use your own characters specifically suited to the purpose? There has to be a reason you're choosing that world and those people to play with.

The scene from Beatles history I chose to represent was the day Stu Sutcliffe handed off his bass to Paul McCartney, effectively quitting the Beatles in order to pursue his art studies. A lot of things led up to this, historically--his decreasing interest in music for his increasing interest in his girlfriend Astrid and the art world she represented; his non-improving bass skills while everyone else was jumping ahead exponentially; the way he and Paul were butting heads over the limelight and John's approval.

See, Paul was dead serious about hitting the big time. So were George and John. Paul saw Stu as a hindrance to this goal, was certain that he could do it better. (Paul also was one of three guitarists at the time and his ego was itching to have a more useful spot in the band, too) Paul also saw Stu as a threat, being John's New Best Friend, edging him out of that coveted position. John was, for a long time, willfully blind of Stu's lack of musical ability, too much in awe of Stu's artsy vibes to acknowledge the truth.

Stu was also strikingly beautiful, and this was particularly abhorrent to Paul, "the cute one."

So one day, Paul gets up from the piano and tackles Stu to the floor! There they viciously tussle until the song ends, when the other three finally make time to pull them apart.

A few days later, Stu mans up and literally hands Paul his bass. Matter-o-factly, resources say, at peace with the decision, I say. Then he goes off to art school in Hamburg, is on the brink of being wildly successful, gets engaged to the love of his life....and then dies of a brain hemorrhage within the year. SAD DAY STU.

So my trickle of story inspiration was the thought that, after this exchange, Paul would have to sit down and re-string the guitar in order to play it left handed (the wikipedia article says that he in fact did not, but the footnote is to the book I was looking at for this express purpose, and I'm sure the quote to which they refer is Paul's, "It was a loan, he didn't want me turning the strings around." Whether he respected this request is open to interpretation, surely.)

So Paul sits down to do this, and everyone else gives him the cold shoulder for being such a jerk to Stu, who I'm sure was very likable. But Paul has on his side the future that will one day be put in history books--Paul McCartney will be the bassist for the Beatles, and the Beatles will take over the world.

Drama, kids. The Beatles are full of untapped drama.

Here's a mini gallery of Astrid Kirchherr's photographs of the early Beatles, because she rocks at that.

Okay, I'm not sure what relevance Stu has with Thursday, but I'm just going to go for it. One bassist's tribute to another, we'll call it.

-Steph

So Many Friends

2010-04-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! For this magical Thursday, I've done a video blog!!! You can find it here.

If you have any questions after watching that video, more answers are here.

My social calendar has been quite full this week! Saturday night Sam came for a visit, under highly fortuitous circumstances! So Sunday was a fun adventure for the both of us, as I took him sight seeing and we ended up going to two separate places that I'd even never been to.

Mostly we played Beatles Rock Band. There was a magical moment where, as Clapton to my Harrison, he 100%'d the solo in While My Guitar Gently Weeps. So I gotta trophy! It was a proud moment for us all.

Shortly after, we had an adventure around the park, and then had a photo shoot, the evidence of which you can find on Facebook. It was a great day.

Then Carolyn came back from Japan, which was where she was for a short time. So yesterday we hung out and I got to see all the pictures and hear the horror stories. She got me a cutest lil Owl guy and a figuring of Lightning from FFXIII. Adorable, one and all.

Today Beth has come over! And we're gonna dye eggs and shirts and watch movies about British music etc. But for dinner we went to this new ramen place, to which I have literally taken everyone I know. We went there last night and when Sam was here, which was their grand opening weekend.

It's pretty good/okay. I've had three different things now, the best of which by far is the curry rice. Go there! I'll give you directions.

Oh and I got new fish! Two more baby neon tetras, which are ~~eggs~~ called Dhani and Brian, and a flying fox, which is supposed to eat the new algae (but I don't think he is). I named him During, 'cause it occurred to me that that would be a cool name.

Oh and Beth wants me to tell you how well I can play with What is Life. We'll jam it up tomorrow, Beth wants me to instruct you to look for our names in lights. Which is ~~eggs~~ RIDICULOUS because it would be our band name in lights, not our name names. So, look for MDMB in lights.

(I also learned Lady Madonna and that's about it.)

Peace and love, peace and love ~~no more autographs~~

~~ringo~~ -Steph!

Every Movie

2010-03-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Today lovely warm spring took a break and we had fake winter again. :< I will ignore it til it stops.

Work was just a tiny baby morning thing, I was out by 1! So I took a walk to ~~CVS~~ Longs and bought lunch and water for my fish. Poor things haven't been cleaned in weeks. But now they're okay!

Got myself a learn bass book, so we've been learning scales and such. Practiced quite a bit today, but mostly out of my tabs binder. I added Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again and the guitar chords for If Not For You.

It'll take a lot of work for me to get any good at the guitar, so I'm glad I'm sticking with bass, lol.

On my walk, I threw on George Harrison's first solo album, All Things Must Pass, and was reminded that What is Life is one of my most favorite songs ever. So I flipped open my binder and found that that was one of the first tabs I ever printed! But it was too hard.

Not anymore. I can totally almost really play it -- slightly slower and I have it perfect; at speed I get a little lost. But the songs that are easy I'm sooo pro at, like Get Back or that Dylan one I mentioned, or really any Dylan one.

I'm video chatting with Beth right now. We jammed a little bit, despite the lag. Ohohoh, technology.

She showed me this lovely video. It's like, what English would sound like if you didn't know it. I've always wondered.

Oh so the other thing is that we now get ten movies a week. Plz to be suggesting things you want me to see. I won't be able to fill that quota under my own steam. I just saw Requiem for a Dream and Rebel Without a Cause, and A Streetcar Named Desire is slated for tomorrow.

Also, if I would stop running around on stupid quests, I could totally beat Final Fantasy XIII. I think I was at around 60 hours, last I checked.

Okay I'm done with this. Lemme know, too, if there's anything in particular you would like to hear about.

-Steph

Video Game

2010-03-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday! Finally got some summery type weather in here, and it's a welcome change. It's nice to be able to open windows again.

Guess who I share a birthday with? I just found out today. Give up? Ventura. Well that's that this book says. The internet says April 1 and also March 9. SHUSH, THE INTERNET THIS TIME YOU'RE WRONG OKAY. So Ventura is 121 years older than me!

Arbortown adventure was fun. It ended up just being me and Carolyn and Beth, but we were a party and claimed the wilderness for ~~Spain~~ ~~Narnia~~ ourselves. I took careful notes on the map because it was highly useless before I added points of interest.

Such points include Monsters! Wishing Pond, Engelmann Secret Base, Bats, chickens, Pokeweed, Abbey Road, and Kangaroons. Next time you go to the Arboretum, I'll show you all the hot spots.

The rest of my week has been FFXIII, sleeping, and trying to wake up in time to go to work. Tomorrow I go at 4 so I think I'm good today.

FFXIII, in this last week, has taken 40 hours of my time. And now I'm at the point where I feel like it'll take 40 more. See, now, this thing is separated into "chapters" -- and let me tell you, that's only the beginning of its literary merit. And by literary I mean artistic, and by artistic I mean this video game (and indeed others) should be recognized as valid expressions of art. A crazy interactive hybrid of narrative cinema and strategic button mashing.

This is not a segue, it's an example: Remember how in The Wizard of Oz, the beginning was in black and white and then at one point it switches to color? That could be (and sounds like, as described there) a purely technical observation, a statement on types of film stock. But also remember that this transition occurs in beat with the narrative, at the point where Dorothy leaves her old life behind and wakes up in this strange new land. Now, you have the information in your grasp to transform this technical observation into critical analysis: Kansas life is dull and average, literally colorless. Step into the vibrant world of Oz, the change in film stock is shocking and ultimately a story-driven effect.

The artistic concept of form enhancing function -- the HOW it's said effecting the WHAT that's being said -- you can find this technique anywhere, not just in filmmaking. In Enchanted she literally goes from a storybook cartoon world into gritty 3-D New York.
Poems about

f
a
l
l
i
n
g leaves

or w i d e o p e n s p a c e s. You get the idea.

So remember how I mentioned the gameplay of FFXIII left a lot to be desired in terms of player input? How the maps were straight shots, no room to explore; the parties limited to who is available; and how their skill sets progressed one step at a time, this then this then this? In other words, the game came across as highly linear (a shocking break from the open worlds of previous titles in the series).

Guess what? It's all part of the story. If you don't want to know a little about the plot of the game, skip this: These characters are, at every step, being told what to do. Primarily, their very existence dictates that their actions can only lead them to one of two predetermined and pretty horrible fates. Their choice is between worse and worst. They have no options. But get this -- as soon as they decide to buck authority, to decide to forge their own futures, the map, storyline, skill sets, EVERYTHING literally opened wide up. We go instantly from point-A-point-B maps to a huge sprawling vast plainsland with optional quests from which to pick and choose.

I mean, if that's not an artistic choice then I know nothing about art. It's still blowing me away.

That, and that it's literally (so much literal speak today) beautiful, with such lovely graphics and people what look like people. Just think, 13 years ago we were playing with top-of-the-line 3D computer graphics...that still rendered characters with fingerless lumps for hands. Now we have this.

Better go get started on my second 40.

-Steph

23

2010-03-11T22:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! How does it feel to be 23? Oh wait, I shouldn't be asking you that. I'll tell you when I figure it out.

Yesterday was pretty chill. I got up early (9ish) and puttered around. Did some laundry. I think I started FFXIII, then went to Target and bought snacks/checked their eye exam prices. Then I went to get a hair cut! And then I went to L&L for curry (it was okay) and then stopped at Mama-ya for MORE SNACKS. And then I played FFXIII until it was time for work. And then I came home and played until 2 in the morning.

11 hours in that, total, including today's play. Just started chapter five!!! But it still feels like I'm waiting for the game to start.

XIII is very very different from the others. In tone, style, gameplay, practically everything. There's no home base for you to gently venture out from (and return to in times of crisis)--you're just BAM thrown into the story, and you're on the move ever since. People are losing loved ones right and left, people are falling into bottomless pits, it's very traumatizing. And there's so much STORY. It's like the battles/battle system/adventuring is an afterthought, sandwiched between endless cutscenes.

Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I like it a lot. There's a lot of depth to what's happening, even though it's turning out I have very little say in what happens or how. It's really more like an interactive movie rather than a video game. It's cool. And it looks beautiful.

Alternasubject: Big Band. Did you know I like big band/jazz/swing more than any other kind of music? Yes it's true! Even more than the Beatles! Throw on something by Glenn Miller and you'll have my attention indefinitely. It's like I was secretly meant to have been there for the 40s. Big band is, like, the music of my soul.

I was at Joann's picking up some stuff for cheaps when I hear some lovely band music playing across the store from the sampler box, and suddenly I realize I know that song. I wander over eventually and see that the compilation cd it emanated from is called "BIG BAND SALUTE: THEME SONGS and HITS of AMERICA'S GREATEST BANDLEADERS."

So of course I bought it. (Which answers a question that none of you asked: what sort of cds do I buy, in this age of media piracy. My answer at the time was "I guess I don't ever buy cds. I'll buy the next Linkin Park album, but other than that......" My updated answer is "LP and compilations from Joann's or Target.")

And I'm so much in love that it prompted me to wax poetic on Facebook, reproduced here for the less Facebook-inundated:

The saxophone is the memory of a voice I've forgotten; the smooth blues shuffle the heartbeat I never knew.

Referring to the 40s as my long-lost era. The 60s don't even compare.

What may make big band a surprising match for me is how little I let on about it. Whereas I've been touting the Beatles for months now, big band is less an obsession and more a given. I mean, I don't necessarily seek it out or need it every day of the week, but if it's there, I couldn't possibly be happier. A little bit of big band is more instantly appealing than mass amounts of anything else. Know what I mean?

It's just right, and it'll always be right. It's perfect. If people were, um, radios, and each personradio only picked up one station, my radio would tune to hits of the 40s. That's what I would sound like, if I were a radio.

An old wooden radio sitting all alone on a side table in the living room; pouring out Glenn Miller and the Dorsey brothers and Louis Armstrong and Sinatra and Peggy Lee and mystery shows and news bulletins about the Battle of Midway and Orson Welles! While the kid plays with his train set on the floor and the dad reads the newspaper and smokes and the mom vacuums. That's the sort of radio I am.

Yeah alright, tomorrow we're going to the Arboretum and then hanging out and I will make people watch A Hard Day's Night. Because everyone should see it. I'll be a hard day's day, so I'm probably gonna get to sleep pretty soon. See ya then!

-Steph

Amp'd

2010-03-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! My dad brought me home the amp he found a month ago! Used, they had to hold onto it a month for business reasons, but it was only $45 so I'd say it was worth it. Looking at new amps in the store, I've seen little guys, probably a fourth the size, for three times the price. A win win for all. Except for maybe the neighbors.

This week I learned the twelve-bar blues, which is a musical pattern that "the blues" is played by. Along with it, then, came George Harrison's "For You Blue." Progress!

Also picked up a beginner's bass book, like, teaching hand position and how to read music, together with theory and style and technique and basically everything I don't know.

ALSO picked up a songwriting book, which holds many secrets. So the band will be up and running in no time.

SUBJECT CHANGE.

Alright. Some of you (I mean the general you; civilization at large) are jerks. You come in here and you don't listen and get angry about things that no one can change, probably things we warned you about the first time you didn't listen. If it gets to the point where you say "you've just lost my business," I can't imagine how you think that is any sort of substantial threat. If it gets to that point, 99% of the time it's because you're being a whiny idiot, and, honestly, frankly, and truly, the loss of your "business" is more like a loss of the disruption you cause every time you come in, so I can only see it as a win-win. You are simply more trouble than you're worth.

Now if you're having legitimate troubles, then we'll help you as best we can, and I'm sorry things are not going your way.

In other news, the rental policies of a certain world wide entertainment rental/retail store has changed. Five dollars. Five days. If you don't bring it back in time, there's another dollar for every day you keep it. (For the following ten days. Then it sells and if you want to keep it you only have to account for the retail price. Bring it back in the next 30 days for a refund of the sale price but minus the accrued $10. Twenty days past the due date the refund is store credit only)

Plz to be bringing movies back on time. My counter argument to your "but what about no late fees?!" is not the company-sanctioned "they're not late fees; it is an additional daily rate" but this instead: THAT MOVIE IS NOT YOURS AND OTHER PEOPLE WANT TO RENT IT. THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DUE DATES BUT SINCE YOU'RE WHINY WE'VE LET YOU KEEP THEM FOR A VERY LONG TIME. NOW YOU ONLY HAVE A LITTLE TIME. BE RESPONSIBLE. IT'S YOUR MONEY.

On my side of the counter, it's usually lose-lose. People complain about not having enough time--when something's checked out for a long time, people who want it actually have said "don't you call them?!" I MEAN SERIOUSLY. It's not OUR fault that people don't bring things back. It's YOUR responsibility. The new rental terms are just there to remind you of that fact.

If we called everybody who had something out late....... The list of things that are out 4-8 days late is six pages long. (Though in fact an automated call does go out before it sells. People still don't get it.)

My least favorite customer actually pretended to slap me when I pointed out that all of that title was rented out. Like it was MY fault that either eight people got there earlier or that the company only felt like sending eight copies.

And sheesh, that's why we're informing you of the change--if it's not something you want to deal with, it's not like we're forcing you to rent here. Threatening me with taking your business elsewhere isn't going to get corporate to change its mind. Seriously. You people.

I can't wait until Sunday, when the things start coming back with the dollar on them. So many people are going to say "but nobody told me!" Trust me, somebody told you. You just weren't listening. I promise that you just weren't listening.

Okay that's my rant. It's been a long week. I'm going to go to sleep.

-Steph