The Mantis They Call Jayne

Happy Thursday! I'm watching the Office! Season 3 finale! BECAUSE NEXT WEEK IT IS ALL NEWZ! Jim and Pam! GAHH!

Let me tell you about our new pet.

Yesterday when we went to check our mail, we discovered a praying mantis next to Megan's car! So we bravely scooped him into one of the boxes she got from the mail.

And then we went on an adventure! (we dropped the mantis off at home first) And went to Go China! Five bucks for a ginormous lunch. And then we went to Petco. Where the pets go. Bought a terrarium, a fake plant, and a tiny spray bottle.

Transporting the mantis from the box to the gladware to the terrarium was really terrifying. He's all legs and spiny arms and bugeyes. He liked to stick to what he was on and not go into where we wanted him to go.

We named him The Mantis They Call Jayne Jermaine. Jayne from Firefly, being Megan's new addiction thanks to me, and Jermaine because we can't stop quoting that video. So all yesterday I had "The Man They Call Jayne" and "Wear the funky eye patch, Bret" stuck in my head. They would switch off.

Jayne is so cool as a pet, I mean, we got him for free, and we can feed him for free--he eats bugs. Any bugs that are smaller than him. He's eaten pincher bugs and a cricket, but I'm not sure if he ever go the rollypollies. He would grab at them but they would roll up, and I don't think he can grab round as well. He's so intense. When he notices there's another bug in there, his head snaps around--and it already pivots like it might not actually be attached--and then he starts dancing. And then the bug gets too close and SNAP he's suddenly got in his crazy spiny arms and is eating it. It's actually pretty surprising we didn't get nightmares from that.



He likes to hang out upside down. And he's really hard to take a picture of because he's so small and the focus goes all wonky through the plastic.

But that's Jayne. I put the Beware of Dog sign up in the window, and Beth put up "MANTIS" over the "dog." So people been pointing at it all day. I was standing at the door, and these two kids walk by, and the one says something about the sign and then says, "there's a mantis in there!" It was so funny.

Ummmm, what about my real week, eh? Uhhhh, finally saw Stardust the other day. Very fun. I liked the management of all the threads of character travel, and I really liked Claire Danes. Hooray fun adventure stories.

Class hasn't been noteworthy--well, today in Writing he finished his lecture way earlier than he expected, so we ended up watching season 2 finale of the Office. Have I mentioned I love my major?

Oh, and it's been raining! During the night. Last night and the night before. So it's been beautiful and cloudy and cool but also warm and it's been great to walk to class in that. OH and I've had a few really good naps this week, too. One in my beanbag, and one in the middle of homework. Ahhh, naps.

Jayne says goodnight!

-Steph

Don't go--I'LL go.

Happy Thursday! Title brought to you by our current inside joke, where someone is leaving, but you say Don't go--I'LL go. And then you maybe sink behind the counter or even leave the room yourself.

Me and Megan, we've been hanging out a lot. It's a side effect from being roomies. Quick, before I forget, this is all the movies we've seen this week:

Firefly (the series), Serenity, Rope, Shadow of a Doubt, Into the Woods, a disc of Fawlty Towers, Return of the Jedi, (and of course I've seen Hairspray and HSM2 a few more times, as well). AND, for Writing class, we've watched episodes from Freaks & Geeks and Mad Men. Oh, and we watched some Colbert because, I kid you not, it was homework for Sitcom. If you ask me, my summer was well spent. You know how it's really important to read, if you want to study literature and stuff? Well, I think you can figure why I think studying tv/film is really great.

My schedule is also really great. There's only two classes that aren't directly tv-related, and even these aren't horrible (I've never had a semester without a class I abhorred). Computer Graphics looks pretty neat, and not as time-intensive as advertised. I mean, I spend about two hours of that class doing nothing (at least so far) because I'm done with the project and can't go until she passes around the roll sheet. I get some creative writing done in that time.

And I dropped I & II Samuel. Like I said, the prof was just NOT getting any information across and he clearly thought he was. So I said, I can stick it, I'll just read the books real well and that'll be enough--but the books were just as thick as he was. And the first reading assignment? 1-38 in the one book and 1-92 in the other. Those thirty pages, too? Were the first half of the introduction, explaining how they decided on which particular translation of the books, using extremely esoteric terms that I can't just grasp as an amateur. So I threw it out and got my $107 dollars back.

I put in its place World Lit to the 1600s. An English class. It's super intense. Lots of reading, but not scholastic reading; reading ancient literature, which beats standard textbooks anyday. ....I just need to order the book 'cause there's none left. But I think Tuesday/Thursdays are funny because it goes Writing, Reading, Writing. Tuesday/Thursdays are really intense.

My classes with Parham look to be the most intensive. Producing, we're actually going to be producing the student films near the end of the semester. That's terrifying. And Writing, I do believe there is some script writing involved. But also learning by example, I think we're watching an episode or two of particular television every week. What a way to start the day.

Sitcom I'm having mixed feelings about. It's less a class and more a writing team like in the real world. Today the production team (another class) came in and discussed problems they found in the script, location- and cost-wise. And on Tuesday we had a "table read" of the script with the newly-cast actors. It's apparently very close to the real world of producing a television show. Kinda daunting. Oh. We're not writing the script, we're fixing up a stock one some other people wrote. It's not bad, but it's not Friends, either. I'll tell you more about it some other time.

So besides going to class and watching movies, (and hanging out--these people ALL expect me to be social) I've been writing. Still mostly HSM fanfiction, but it's so much fun. Gonna slip a Hairspray fic soon. Also, on Wednesday, Megan was all "LET'S WRITE SOMETHING," and then we spent that day discussing what became our thriller movie. It's about creepy stalkers and psychopathic killers and the like. It's very intense to discuss around other people. Have you ever seen Rope? It's Hitchcock, and it's beautiful. I didn't know I'd seen it, but Megan put it on and I was all OH and then we watched it and it was eerily similar. But also very different. Our main character would find that main character very flawed in his murder. Our main character is crazy.

It's still nice and warm here. Gets pleasantly cool at night. The sprinklers go on for hours in the dark, so we have a giant lake outside our door. Oh, tiny bugs can and do walk right in under the door. We still have to light the stove by switching on the gas at the back and quickly using a lighter on the burner we want. Oh, we also been playing some DDR, and today we finally used the TV as a TV because I finally plugged in the antenna. I've been walking to class and back as much as possible, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it took 23 or so minutes from the top of West Campus to my apartment, when last year it would take 20 minutes just to go from the sidewalk of one campus to the sidewalk of the other.

Thursdays really are quite good.

I'll leave you with a comic story. So yesterday, Megan checked her mail and was blessed with three packages! I asked, do you know what they are, or maybe it is surprises? She says she's got a comic book, a movie, and a hat. Neat, I say.

She opens the first one. A comic book. X-men. Old school.

She opens the second one. Also a comic book. Lies, I say, I bet that last one is like a sock or something.

She opens the third one. I swear to everything good and true that it is in fact NOT a hat, but a small box of rubber bands.

She didn't even order rubber bands.

-Steph

Hotter'n HELLTH In Here! AKA You Can't Stop The Beat

Happy Thursday from A-town! Moved in on Sunday, and it was totally like 108 or so degrees. And then it got hotter and hotter until yesterday. And we didn't have electricity! No lights, no A/C. It was great.

Me and new roomie Megan went and saw Hairspray again and again on Monday and Tuesday. Still really great. So great. Too great. I need to see it again, and then own it.

Which is alright, since for two of my classes, the on-going homework is to watch as much tv and as many movies as possible.

Which I'm doing, since I introduced Megan to Firefly yesterday, and now we have only two episodes left! I'd forgotten how great this show is (not really, not entirely forgotten); at least, it never ceases to amaze. And it reminds me that this was the thing that, near two years ago, made me switch my major so as to maybe write something just as amazing someday. (or at least try.)

Other roomie Kelly is nice, too. Haven't seen her much, what with schedules and all. But I think this year/apartment setup deal is gonna be real easy-nice. Also nice is having the whole place with just the three of us, four like last year could be a bit much.

Classes! Had all of them 'cept for Producing, 'cause that's only on Monday. But I'll tell ya about the rest.

Yesterday, Intro to Computer Graphics. Three hours, twice a week. Real late in the day, 7:30. But it's the only thing Wednesdays. We are gonna use graphics programs to make art! Exploring font and all kinds of stuff like that. I think it'll be good or fun, or at least interesting/informative, but it looks like it's going to be all kinds of time intensive. Jeesh.

Writing for TV, Radio, and Film! Way early in the morning. Looks like it's more like learning *how* to write rather than writing all the time. I mean, I bet there's gonna be a lot of writing, but there's also a strong learning ...thing. In it. Looks fun.

I & II Samuel! Is awful. We have this guy who's maybe three years older than us, it's his first sememster here at APU, and he just reads his powerpoints (which are too technical and too seemingly irrelevant) too fast for us to take notes. There's a five page review on one of the books, a ten page research paper on a topic of our choice (sound familiar?), and a comprehensive final. That's it. I'm going to give it another week before deciding to drop it.

Sitcom Writing! Way for sure the best class ever. There's six people, including Megan and myself. We're basically re-writing this someone-else's pilot for the Sitcom Acting class to perform, and the Sitcom Producing class to produce. Just like the real world. So basically, it's not particularly a class, it's a writing project. We all start with A-s, and if we don't do something stupid, we can't end the semester with anything lower than that. So, much funs in this arena.

No school tomorrow! But that's a day for cleaning and homeworks and such. And I guess English Conversation Class again. Yatta.

Maybe I'll take some pictures soon, so yous know what I'm talking about. And I'll send my schedule to those what want it. So.

Gosh, now there's only one episode left. Probably save it for tomorrow. Then, Angel. Then, Lost. Then, Veronica Mars. Then, the Office, when it's new again at the end of the month. Who's excited!

-Steph

What Time is It!

Summertime! (Happy Thursday). I mean, School time. Going back Sunday. Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. !

I'm fairly certain that I didn't inform you of what classes I registered for. So now I guess it's time for me to tell you what classes I am taking imminently.

T/Th: I & II Samuel
T/Th: Sitcom Writing
T/Th: Writing for TV, Radio, & Film
M: Producing & Production Management
M/W: Intro to Computer Graphics

Yeah, lookit all that writing. Hurrah.

Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis week, I went on some adventures. Driving adventures. Alllllllllll the way around my valley with my dad: from Saticoy to Camarillo to Pt. Mugu to Port Hueneme to Oxnard and back to Ventura. I seen so many places I've never seen before! It was real exciting.

And then there was the time I picked up Steven at the library, then we went to L&L, then we went to Gamestop, then we went to his house.....then we went to my house, then we went to Gamestop, and then we went to his house......it almost went on forever. Thrilling.

Uh, what else. Been cleaning and packing. But that's not very interesting.

Um, well. Happy Thursday.

Oh, I remember being proud of my vast technological victories. First I found the secret code to make the DVD player region free. So now I can buy any sort of Japanese DVD I want. If I can find a place to buy them.

Aaaaaaaaaaand then I got 9 BILLION points on Pokemon Pinball. That game lasted over an hour and a half! It was really amazing. I'm just sad I didn't hold out just a little longer to get 10 billion. One day, one day.

There was something else, too, but I utterly forget.

I just saw an ad for the LA County Fair, and it reminds me that I want to go to that. Since it's in session while I actually live in LA County. I deserve to go to that, don't I? I just love fairs. No idea why, I just do. Yaay fairs.

I don't really know what's going on in this post anymore. It's late. Or whatever. More school-talk next week, no doubt.

-Steph

Thursday of the Week

Happy Thursday! I just finished watching High School Musical for the fifth time! I don't care what you think, it fills my heart with happiness.

Not a busy week, which means even if I did go into all the fangorious details, I'd still have to fill up the rest of the thing with, like, interesting stuff. This week I hung out with Carolyn and Jacqi (and Steven) in the real world, and gushed over HSM2 with Jennifer and Beth on the interwebs. I saw movies.

HSM2: SO CUTE. The songs are so much fun, and the dancing is more intense. The acting is decent. Vanessa Hudgens is very, very believable, while Ashley Tisdale needs to be taught how to not-just-read-aloud the script. Kid Efron is adorable, as is Grabeel. There's even a tragic scene at which I mist up every time. Over all, it just fills my heart with happiness. It's worth saying twice. OH. And, the moral is not as heavyhanded or irrelevant as in the first one. It's a lot more like a real movie.

Hairspray: Since I saw it sandwiched between airings of HSM, I get the two confused. Also because they both have singing, dancing, high school, and Zac Efron. But I do remember that it was also a lot of fun to experience. Travolta is a much better woman than you might expect. Or maybe, just as you expect. Newcomer Blonsky, the lead, is pretty good, but seems better suited to Broadway than Hollywood. Pfeiffer was downright disgusting, but it really suited the character. Full of laughs and the message isn't overforced, either.

The Prestige: The most apt description that comes to mind is not at all appropriate for polite company; maybe I'll point you to someone else who says it if you ask very nicely. I don't even know what to say about it. Oh, don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad review. I just don't know how to explain it without ruining it. Let's just say I truly wish I was smart enough or focused enough to write something like that.

Tony Takitani: Very Indie. Very Japanese. That being said, it's very slow and poignant without really being about much of anything at all.

Out of my new batch of signs I learned, my favorite is "lizard." It's an L with the one hand, and then it runs up your other arm. XD Like a lizard would.

Oh, so we've had more battles with the Raccoons. The big one was lurking about a couple days ago. So I kept chasing him away, "run, raccoon! run away!" I want to pet him. Once when I went out to run him off, there was all this commotion as soon as I stepped outside--it was the three baby raccoons fleeing for the safety tree. So then we shone the light up there and laughed at their silly raccoon faces. Here's some pictures.

Yeah. So laughable.

I also got new glasses! I mean, I finally picked them up! And I could immediately tell the difference. The prescription for my left eye had changed, which is why it had been hurting so bad. With the new glasses, I can tell its vision is being altered in a positive way rather than a negative way. There's a bit of funk in between the way the world looks through the glasses and what's bordering that, if that makes any sense at all. I'll get used to it, haha. Funky. Here's what they look like:

Snazzy, eh?

I really really need a haircut.

Happily, Thursdayily yours,

Steph

Lobster Week

Happy Thursday! Lobster week is a lot like Shark Week, but it's a lot tastier. I never told you about my sign language show.

So one morning (really, it was the afternoon), I happened upon a show called Signing Time. Like a kid's show that teaches Spanish and reading, but instead it was for sign language. That day I learned all kinds of fun things, like "boots," and "outside," and "hat," and "silly."

And then it disappeared. I've only caught it maybe once since then. It reviewed for me the letters, and the numbers. AND THEN. I was taught the most wonderful signs: "crab," and "lobster." Crab is hard to explain, but I'll teach you lobster.

Both hands palm up. Then make like the peace sign (or two, or a V), and then snap 'em. Lobster.

And then lobsters have been everywhere. All the time I see lobsters, and then get to sign it compulsively. Lobsters on Good Eats, lobsters on that Wamu commercial, lobsters on that fake laptop in the model house. It's crazy. Megan, my last-year roommate, concocted a good plan for all the lobsters I encounter:

LOBSTERAIDE

- 1 cup finely chopped lobster tails
- 3 tbs. parsley
- 2 cups lemon juice
- 1 cup diced lobster claws
- 3 tsp salt
- 4 cups water

serves 4

Haven't tried it yet, but One Day, I assure you, One Day.

Just been hanging out this last week. In my garden? I have a cucumber vine plant? And this monster cucumber is about ready to be picked. Well. That sounded a lot more interesting before I wrote it. Also, there's a little green pepper which I hope will someday turn red. (like a lobster)

Seen movies. Gray Matters, Alfie, Constantine. Want to see Stardust. Coulda seen it, but I stayed home to watch Feasting on Asphalt 2, The River Run. This is Alton Brown, from Good Eats (you know, my favorite food show which I'm watching in twenty minutes) but he takes like a bike gang and travels America, sampling the native foods. Last summer he went from east coast to west; this season he's going up the Mississippi. It's a fascinating and great journey. Saturdays at nine. Food Network.

In the literary side of life, I just finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I filched it out of my sister's room some weeks back, and was reading it bit by bit. But it got intense, you know, at the end, so I finished it. Tragic as all get out. Quite good.

I also had an eye exam and picked out new glasses. They're half frames, so they had to send them out to the shop to put all the special coats on them. I'll show you pictures when I get 'em.

But without 'em, my eyes tend to hurt. I don't know if it's because I'm using glasses that aren't quite the right prescription anymore. We'll see. But for now, I'mma wrap this up, so I don't have to look at it.

-Steph

Salty Salty Sharky Joe

...........................................

So you know how sometimes, if you hit the window instead of the text box, and then you hit backspace, it takes you back a page? Well, that just happened to me. And I was 90% done with writing a very extensive look at my active week and Casino Night today. So I'm really rather depressed, since it was so good. And instead of thinking of Happy Thursday things to tell you, like poker and baby raccoons, I just feel like telling you about how Raines was cancelled. Which is also very depressing. Seriously, when I found out for sure, I got so angry I was really almost sick. And the instant analogy my mind found for me was, "cancelling Raines is like murdering a baby." Because it was so good and exactly what television needed, and all I wanted to do was watch more of it. It could have been a classic.

Deleting my entire letter is like when I'm playing Final Fantasy. I like to level up, so that I don't die, right? But sometimes, things are just so hard, like Seymour, or like Xaldin in KHII, where you lose unexpectedly, and you just have to turn it off and walk away for a few days. Like in FFXII, I was exploring the Sandsea, an ENORMOUS map with no save spot--two or three hours into it, my entire party is wiped out by this Entite, this monster which now (at level 60) is still a challenge to defeat, and this was me at level 15 or so.....and all that exploring, that two hours, was suddenly wasted. That ached. I definitly didn't go back to that for a few days. I just don't pop back from loses like this so easily.

So, Happy Thursday. I'm sorry you couldn't enjoy the details of my week the way I wanted to present them to you. I'll give you a little list, but it just won't be the same. Share in my tragic woe.

Last Thursday, midnight, Bourne Ultimatum. Very good.

Five hours later, waking up and driving to Burbank to pick up my sister's friend from the airport. She stayed with us a few days, 'cause she's from Washington.

Sunday, hung out with Jacqi and Greg and Kaia at a picnic, at Jacqi's house, and at Kaia's house. Watched Guys and Dolls with Brando and Sinatra. A fun movie.

Monday, played KHII and FFXII; Jacqi and Greg dropped by on their way back from the mall.

Tuesday spent the whole day at my mom's classroom, helping out. Mostly entered data on all the posters she has. Also played Oregon Trail on the ooooooold Mac that I moved from one side of the counter to the other. My party (Pluto, Charon, Nix, Hydra, Cerberus) all survived, which is rare.

Yesterday went to the fair with everyone, which had a whole three paragraphs of fun. Looked at old people art, at kid art, at chickens, at barn animals, at rabbits, at lawns, at photography. I had my yearly udon/corndog/cotton candy. No room for an apple tower. I feel entitled to take my time at the fair, to savor it yearly, but that bored everyone away, so it was just me and Carolyn by the end. I enjoy the term and the atmosphere of the Midway, but I don't like the rides. We ended up back at Carolyn's house, watching jellyfish and face eating tumors and gender bending.

Today I went to the Salvation army to get some lounge music records. I ended up buy The Soul of Spain, and the Harmonicats, instead. And a pillow with Matt from Digimon on it. Then to Vons for salty snacks and bottled beverages, and then Jacqi and Greg on the way back. Then Carolyn showed up, and a little bit later Steven appeared, and we had Casino Night. Jacqi raked in most of the money. We also went to the park and examined the new play equipments. We all managed to climb up the little slide. Then we cooked chicken type food, a soup, three minute mashed potatoes and some corn, and also rice. It was cute and fun. Cooking with a bunch of people is entertaining.

Also, we called Jennifer on speaker phone and discussed possible cosplay for the AX next year. Yes. Already.

The big raccoon tried to steal Donnie's food, but I scared it away. Later, I found its babies stuck in our tree, all alone. So we took pictures. They make sounds like a squeaky toy mixed with a dolphin. The babies have cute little bear/badger faces, too.

Also, there was an earthquake at 1 this morning. I'd just gone to sleep, so that when I woke up to the earthquake, I hadn't even known I was asleep. Back at school, I kept expecting to wake up to an earthquake every morning, I don't know why. But I did this morning, but when I sat up, it stopped. And then I wasn't at all sure if there really had been an earthquake--maybe it was just my heartbeat shaking the bed. So I really didn't know if there was or was not an earthquake until I looked it up online this morning.

Okay. I'm sorry this is so dead sounding. My hopes and dreams were instantly shattered, so what do you expect. At least I have Good Eats and Colbert Report to finish off my day. Good night.

-Steph

They Might Be Crazy

Happy Thursday! Today, being the 2nd, happens to be Planism Thursday. I hope you all wore your blues and yellows along with the reds and browns.

In the cleaning (which will be discussed soon), I found a tape which must be my brother's, and it's labeled They Might Be Giants. Now, the only experience I have with them is through Homestar Runner. But I guess it's a real old band since the tape case has "Buena Rules" etched into the back. Which is adorable. ANYWAY, They Might Be Giants is a crazy band. But quite entertaining. Song about mammals? Entertaining.

So we went to Huntington Library on Saturday. That's a cool place, I've only been there once in my memory. But, but! There's this GINORMOUS cactus garden. Like, you could get lost forever in there. We were walking, and it was all, oh, this is cute, and I thought we were done, but then we were in there for maybe another hour. Hour and a half, even. I haven't uploaded any of my pictures yet, 'cause I'm a crazy old coot, but it was amazing. The only one I saw that was really for sure like one I have here at home, was this big version of Rokusho. Which eventually I'll put up on Flickr, so you'll know what I mean.

There's also this big Japanese type area, so this place is now likely to be one of my favorite places ever. There's a bamboo forest type place, and a bonsai garden and a rock garden and a big wooden bridge and a fake house and then a little park with a koi pond going all through it. And a crazy tour guide saying that we get our amusement parks from the way the Japanese would put a tea garden in every place they go.

There's also a bunch of statues from classical mythology, and I totally could recognize them from my recent pillaging of Wikipedia on the subject. Except I couldn't remember who the Greek Diana was--it's Artemis.

But then we went to Ikea. Grrr. Not really a good thing to stack on top of a big adventure. But we got me a giant thing of drawers to put things in, which means I had/have to reorganize like everything, and that's WAY FUN. So that's what I've been doing.

OK SO. The Bourne Ultimatum. Is playing in Camarillo at 11:59, and I'm going to be there for it. So we need to leave like now, so I'll see you tomorrow. Happy Thursday. :3

-Steph

PS
I'm rooting for Pasha.

I know, I know, I'm late again

Happy Thursday! Happy Awful Thursday, in fact. You see, every Thursday's been pretty happy for about three, four years now. But where does all that awful go, after the happy squeezes it out of the day? I'll tell you where. That awful goes into a savings account, where it accumulates. Then, one day, it pours all out and creates on Awful Thursday. I'd say one Awful Thursday every three years is worth the price of having one Happy Thursday each week.

I hope today wasn't too traumatic for you all. Without warning and such.

Today I read a whole book. The Painted Word, by Tom Wolfe. He described the progression of Modern Art, and I thought it was interesting enough. His tone and attitude towards the subject was rather "irreverent" (as pointed out in the cover review), and his style was what made it worth it. Real funny, at times.

Then I went to Carolyn's house! And we played Starcraft, because Starcraft is fun, and we haven't played in forever. And then we went to the park and played some croquet. She did a speech on it in her class, so now she's all pro at it. I, however, am not. We played with Steven and his buddy. We also used the swings and the general store and the fire dept and tried not to fall in the lava.

Hey, I never told you about her picnic thing LAST week, where we played on the train what goes to Suremik, and also met Paco. Paco had some really sweet Pokemon cards, and we played a rendition of the game that consisted of him handing us some cards, and us slapping them down on the floor of the play equipment, and him shouting, "I win!" and taking all the cards back. It was real fun. We also made up a whooooole story about the volleyball players, who (according to us) are a local gang running all the small businesses, and also doing cloning experiments. It was great fun.

Did I tell you I saw Die Hard and/or Transformers? I have. Die Hard was better. Like, way better. Transformers wasn't bad...it just wasn't good. Die Hard, on the other hand, was actually a movie. With Mac. Whose name was Matt. Huh. And, as I pointed out to my parents in a pseudo-intellectual way, the inclusion of bumbling geeky hacker boy as a crucial back-up to brawny everymans hero McClane is a sign of the changing concept of strength and ability to prevail over evil. Whereas McClane has had no trouble previously in shooting things up and generally beating his way to victory, the new generation demands not only subtlety but technological know-how in order to put the villain in his place.

Been writing some, lately. Kinda started a thing called Radio Silence, one of those massively thought-out epic stories that I'll never write. The other thing is that I'm gradually anthropomorphizing the Solar System. Setting up the characters as based on the planets' relation in space, and then giving them personalities, histories, and conflicts inspired by their mythological counterparts. So far I'm just doing Pluto and Charon, who are suddenly beset by Nix and Hydra moving in with them. In space, Pluto and Charon are dwarf planets that share a barycenter outside of either mass (Charon is not Pluto's moon because it does not revolve around Pluto; they revolve together around a separate point), and Nix and Hydra do revolve around both of them. In mythology, Pluto (Hades) is lord of the Underworld, Charon ferrys the dead across the river Acheron, Nyx is his mother and embodiment of darkness, and Hydra is the multi-headed lizard creature what guards the Underworld. As you can see, Wikipedia is making me a crazy person. But it's so much fun to write.

I get this from the Griffith Observatory, which recently reopened. We visited it ....last...Saturday. I was woken and told I needed to be ready to leave within the hour, and then I was stole away to Hollywood. It was really neat, I want to go back and absorb more. I've always liked space (Thanks, Star Trek), and especially Pluto. I share a bond with Pluto since I invented Ryan Toronto, who, as an outlaw, lurks around my own futuristic Pluto. BUT, at the Observatory, the Pluto display kept calling Charon Pluto's "companion," and that's what got the whole creative work rolling. There was also a movie hosted by Leonard Nimoy in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater, in which his wife says that this new theater is better for necking in than the planetarium theater.

I hope you enjoyed today's letter, despite the Awfulness that surrounded everything today. I'd been getting complaints about how sparse I've been writing these lately, and so perhaps I won't get so much flak about this one. I'll try not to put it off to the last minute...anymore. ^^? We'll see, anyhow.

-Steph

Wishes do come true!

Happy Thursday! This has been a pretty fun and laid back/busy week. And magical. Let me tell you.

Saturday my aunt and uncle from Goleta came down for a barbeque, which was nice. They're those relatives you actually don't have anything against, yet still manage to never see even though they live in the same state. They brought one of their dogs, Bentley, a reddish miniature poodle. They cut him to look like a dog instead of modern art, so he's very cute. And well behaved. We took a walk around the park and they took a visit to the fenced off dog area. There was a very beautiful husky type dog in there.

And then the next day, my neighbor got married. They moved in next door when I was...seven-ish, and I still remember the first time I saw her in their front yard. She was all of nine years old, and now she's married. It was a great event! The ceremony was on the beach, by those rocks with the squirrels, and the dress code was "hawaiian-esque." The reception was up in the...whatever it is, what used to be the Holiday Inn, up in that room that used to spin. I don't think I've ever been in there before. There was food and music and dancing and it was all very magical. I'm real happy for her.

The title of my post refers to the fact that we got a kitten, and I attribute it to the fact that I "wished hard enough." I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but there's this new little cat that's been around for a month or so, looks like Simba reincarnated. We used to see him with mice and stuff, and he's very scrawny and wary of people. But I fed him the other day, and since then he's stuck around, who'da thunk.



When I first saw him, I called him Ghost of Simba. Later that changed to Fake Simba. Combined, he was often known as Gfimba. But now that he was MINE, I thought he deserved a real name. Also, I'm pretty sure it's a girl cat, but I'm also pretty sure that cats don't care what pronoun you use at them. We tried Bagheera, Paris, Tybalt...he was Tybalt for the longest, but my sister didn't buy it. I'm not exactly sure where Donnie came from, but I do know he's named after Donnie Darko, for his crazy eyes. (my sister tells me she was just throwing out names, and probably, then I just decided it was for Donnie Darko.)

He comes when you call him! Probably because he thinks "Dooonnnnie!" means "I have foooooooooood for youuuuuuu!" And he's pretty much the perfect cat because he doesn't want you to pet him, and he doesn't rub on you, or drool. He pretty much only loves me because of my foods I give him.

And then he spontaneously and unfathomably got himself stuck on the roof. Overnight, 'cause we couldn't get him down at all. The humane society didn't help at all, and then we called our tree trimmer friend, who sent his kid up there. The kid just grabbed him and scooted on down, and crisis averted.

Um! That's pretty much all that happened to me. Played Kingdom Hearts II and got to level 99, just gotta beat it now. I'll stop writing now, because my sister wants me to go on some sort of adventure.

I hope the cute picture makes up for it.

-Steph

Helloooooo

Happy Thursday! I feel like there was some sort of silly Thursday that was coined today, but I definitely forget it by now.

"Definitely" was one of those words that I could never remember how to spell. But I looked at it one day and figured it out. It's the word "finite." With a de- and a -ly. And that's all there is to it.

Here's a similar story. In sixth grade, our language arts and reading teacher, Mr. Dilbeck, gave a simple way to remember how to write there, their, and they're. See, they all start with the-, which is important. And...well, I guess I don't remember how else he specifically "taught" it, but since then I remembered what the differences are. Like "they're" is a contraction of They Are, so clearly it's the one with the apostrophe. And "their" is just weird, with that "i", but since they all start with the-, it must be after the e.... just stuff like that, I remember.

The next ones I'm going to sit down and learn how to spell are the believes, conceived, nieces, etc. those, I just have to let my fingers do it and see if it looks right. I know there's that I Before E crud, but that's just never been useful to me. Especially since there's all those exceptions no one ever tells you about.

Speaking of, I learned "special" because for some reason one day I decided that the "c" was giving the "i to the "a" as a present, and that's why they go in that order.

A special present.

Last weekend was the Visalia trip. I had to wear one of those...I think they call them "dresses" to the funeral. That was not very fun. Not that it should have been, but. It was nice seeing the aunts/uncles/cousins/cousins' kids, though. And the weather was real nice, 107. I miss it.

Today I just hung out with Carolyn (and Steven), as well as Monday and Tomorrow because she had a birthday and now she's an old man. And that's why this is so late 'cause I was over there and we were watching the best shows NBC has to offer until real late and now I'm out of time and it's stressing me out, although I'm really excited for NBCs fall lineup.

Stay classy, San Diego

-Steph

Anime Expo, 2007

Happy Thursday!! I can't believe it's a week later and the whole thing is over now. Just like I said, y'know? I know what I'm talking about. All the time. Want to see some pictures?



This is the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. It is not really the Convention Center, but they're somehow connected. As in, you go in to the Exhibit Hall on the North side, in the Convention Center, and you somehow come out on the South side of the theater (which is this). It took a while to figure that out.




THIS is the Convention Center. We've been to AXes here before, before they moved to Anaheim. But it's real different from what I remember. For instance, I thought the Queen Mary was right to the north of this....but it's definitely restaurants there.

One of the problems of this AX was how spread out everything was. The theater and the convention center are like blocks apart (makes the exhibit hall too big) so everyone is spread apart. There wasn't a definite alley or hallway where you could regularly find all the cosplayers. And for me, cosplay is way more important than the exhibit hall. I mean, it took us two full days to get through the exhibit hall once. In other years we're in, we're out, and then we're sitting and enjoying the cosplay. So, for me, this year was a little reversed, and that was too bad.

But this is our hotel! The WESTIN. The morning we went, I told everyone to go to the Hyatt, but I must have been crazy, because we definitely booked the Westin. Silly me.

The foreground is the fountains area in front of the theater, so that's how close we were. Also in the foreground is the remains of a really dumb Host Club gathering, where all the Host Club cosplayers (like us) showed up to take pictures.......but they didn't know what they were doing.

This is our amazing room! We waited forever to check in (actually made it through the badge line waaaaay fast, thanks to pioneering Greg). But it's a niiice room. Lot more floor space than we expected, which was good because three people were sleeping on the floor. Shhhh.





Our beautiful view of beautiful Long Beach, California.









THIS is the Hyatt, which was mysteriously connected to the Convention Center on the west side. This is us journeying to the more restaurants near the water. "Us" in this sense is me, Carolyn, Steven, and Steven's little friends.






This is US as in Carolyn, Me, Steven, Jennifer, Jacqi, and Greg. Marie took the picture.

See how Steven's is intense?

And Jacqi made Greg's allll on her own. They took a bus down to the AX from Santa Cruz the night before. Poor kids.





And here they are in their own set of costumes, cosplaying from Pokemon. Jacqi is Ash, and Greg is Dawn. We almost didn't recognize them when they came into the hotel.










Here we are enjoying our free Kodomono Nomimono (Kid's Drink). It says apple cider soda, and non-alcoholic...the Americanized bottle I brought home says Party Pop! It was like reaaaally watered down wine, or weak appley beer. But it was free!




Most of the time, me and Carolyn wandered the Exhibit Hall, just trying to find things to buy because there was too much of the same useless stuff. Sometimes we had Steven as Beelzenef, and I had to guide him through the crowds. But he got us lots of pictures because of how intense he was.

The rest of the time, we hung out in the hotel, or ventured over to the restaurants. The others kept journeying to the Vons in the ghetto bit of town hidden behind the hotels. But the touristy part of Long Beach was really nice. Once we walked along the harbor past the aquarium. There's a little peninsula with a light house on it and everything. It's very cute.

Watched a lot of Man Vs. Wild, lions and snakes documentaries, small people documentaries....Fantastic Four. Scrubs, Futurama. Some news.

Went swimming once. It's good to get my yearly swim in.

I've never really gone to any of the activities planned for AX goers, but the others made valiant efforts. There were concerts, panels, movies, all kinds of things. I ended up going to see Tokyo Godfathers the first or second night, and it's one of the greatest movies ever made. I need to buy it. I really really do. Other than that, I joined everyone in sitting in the auction on the last day when we'd already checked out and just wanted to sit someplace. They were selling signed sketches and posters and box sets of things for like thousands of dollars apiece. The caller also wasn't very good, but it was interesting enough to watch. And we sat through the beginning of the ending ceremonies (a first!) but then we had to leave. Awwww.

Here's just some random pictures.


Awww, they're sitting on the cute benches! I think Carolyn was also taking a picture, and Steven was off with his little friends like he did a lot.





Swirly lights from the arena during the auction.









Kyiiiaaaaaaaaaaar!
Says the face in the theater.






Cosplayers!!


Hitmonchan; Pokemon.










Maruchan Instant Lunch cups.








Mokona; Magic Knight Rayearth and Tsubasa Chronicles (the latter of which we cosplayed last year)







A Go board. You all remember the Go club?








Kanmuri, Azuma, Yoshino, and Kirisaki; Yakitate!! Japan.

aka, the Bread Show I always talk about.







A Spartan, I assume. He was just cool because he was wearing that shiny cardboard face on the side of his real face...and that's just cool.











Hawkeye; FMA (don't you all remember those uniforms?)
Riku, I imagine; Kingdom Hearts II
These are Steven's little friends Karen and Hannah. They're pretty cool.







Mello, Matt, and Near; DeathNote. Not my favorite characters, but they were a cute little group.







Balthier and someone-I-don't-know; Final Fantasy XII

Balthier is my favefavefavorite from FFXII, and this guy just ROCKED as him. That other guy....I don't think he's from FFXII 'cause I just do not know him. But maybe I'm just not there yet. *shrug*







Axel; Kingdom Hearts II

She was pretty good. There were a lot of lame Axel's, just 'cause he's so popular.









Shuuichi from Gravitation.
Gravi is soo oldschool, but there's always a Concert!Shuuichi like this one.








This is blurry 'cause I was zoomed up, but.

Mikami (we guess) from DeathNote.
You see, in DeathNote, there is an item called a Death Note, and "the human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die." So this guy? He was looking out through the registration line, jotting down names.
HARDCORE costume roleplay.


Florist-Aya; Weiss Kreuz.
Ah, Aya. If you know me online, you'll know the name Aya. Clearly, someone other than me loves him, too.











Zabimaru; Bleach.
In Bleach, the fighters have these swords, and the swords have different levels of strength, right? When you release the sword to it's second level (bankai), it sometimes stops looking like a sword. This is Renji's Bankai, a crazy sectioned snake thing. And some people cosplaying it.




Stealth shot of Cloud and Tifa from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Yeah, it's still popular. It's hard to find non-Advent Children versions anymore.

Inside the convention center, second floor, looking out. Awww, what cute little anime fans.

One of the things I truly love about the AX is that it's a different sort of stranger. I mean, when you're walking down the street in a crowd at any other time of the year, the people around you are just strangers, and you don't have any idea about who they are. But at the AX, when the Convention Center as well as the surrounding streets are filled with anime fans...it's like you already know them. You can just walk by and say, "I like your shirt!" and he'll say, "thanks!" and you'll continue on. If they're cosplaying, it's even easier, 'cause you know automatically one of their favorite shows and can assume several others. And then you can talk about it. Or calmly take pictures of people you'll never see again. I was wearing my Naruto shirt, not even cosplaying, and I smiled at this Itachi crossing the street, and he knew why I was smiling; because we had Naruto in common. You can't just smile at strangers on the street, they'll think you're weird.

At the Anime Expo, you already know everyone else is weird.

You can walk up to someone dressed the same as you, invite her to a gathering of the show you're all wearing as, and then still be friends with her two years later. We caught Andrea only for a moment, and I was silly and didn't even take any pictures of her in her Tenchu cosplay, but that's the sort of bonds forged in an Anime Expo.

And here's us in the arena, between the auction and the closing ceremonies. Our group in the back (Carolyn, Jacqi, Marie, Jennifer, Greg), Steven's group in the front (Steven, Karen, Hannah, Maddie, and Sta..cey).

It was fun times, it really was. Till next year!

Also what happened over the weekend was that my Grandpa died. So now I have to go finish my laundry and pack again, 'cause we're leaving for Visalia at 3-ish. Funeral's tomorrow. So. I'll catch you next week.

-Steph

Imminence

Happy Thursday! Things are always imminent, but I think that some things should just have imminence. Like the AX. Which is, technically, in an hour. As of time of writing. I still need to pack!

Went to Carolyn's today, to help finish Steven's costume which is totally intense. It's not exactly *done,* but it's well on it's way. It's wearable. He's going to be a giant cat hand puppet. Poor kid doesn't know the horrors of summertime cosplay yet, so this will be quite an education for him.

Not too much else to mention, unfortunately. Bought some new brown clothes. Some polos. I think I'll get into polos.

It's just crazy that the AX is tomorrow. It's one of those things you wait for allll year (duh) but they always creep up on you and then suddenly you're AT the thing, and next you know, you have to wait a whoooole 'nother year. This year, I promise to actually recap next Thursday. I somehow forgot to last year. And the pre-AX Thursday was pretty lame 'cause I was so stressed out about getting time off from Vons....it was a fiasco. Luckily (?) I don't have a job yet this time around, but I will soon after (?). Sigh.

Yeah, I need to wake up at five, so I'll see you all next week. Enjoy your normal lives!!

-Steph

A week of Things

Happy Thursday! It's a Blackjack Thursday, but nowadays I find HoldEm has replaced Blackjack as the game of my heart. SO. I got some Hold Em in today, after seeing Ocean's 13 (in which, coincidentally, poker was never mentioned, while blackjack was a plot point).

Here's some cool things of the week:

My Psychic Moment.
I have deja vu often. I see the future in dreams, and then forget about it until it actually happens. At which time I announce that I'm having a deja vu, and proceed to tell you what is happening at the moment. I'm so advanced that I can tell you what's going to happen *next*, I just experience the moment as if I've seen it before (which I have). So it's more like I start going "OH we're all sitting here, and then I move my hand like this, and then I look over there."

I was sitting with my sister watching Colbert Report, and this commercial comes on, advertising both the Daily Show and the Report in a split screen. So I'm like "OH. Deja vu. We're sitting here, and there was that ad, and then for some reason there was no more * sound." I had my hands over my eyes to sort of remember what I "remembered," so I didn't see that at the * there, my sister grabbed the remote and muted the tv. Gah. In the dream it had been delivered in, I remember that the rest of the dream had been soundless, but to actually say "no more sound," and have the sound drop out as you say it, that was pretty cool.

My Senile Moment.
Earlier that day, we were watching Good Eats. (Imagine that, my two favorite shows in the same day...) And I was sitting waaay close to it (and this was the day I didn't do anything at all, keep this in mind) and I notice that Alton's glasses are similar to mine. "He's got the same glasses as me!" I exclaim. And then I try to take my glasses off to hold them up to the screen and compare. I'm grabbing at the space around my eyes, trying to grab my glasses and wondering why I can't get a hold of them. And then I realize and clap my hands to my face--"I'm not wearing my glasses!" Because I hadn't even put them on in the morning.

My Surreal Moment.
Went to bed late last night. It's almost 1:30. I hear rustlings outside, so I lean over my window to look--I've seen a possum and a raccoon on my neighbors' roof after such sounds. This time I don't see anything, but whoever it is is making a lot of racket in the tree that touches their roof. And then OUT OF NOWHERE this giant white owl swoops down and battles that noise maker. I don't know if he got it, but it was quiet after that. And then he flew right by me, not more than three feet away, right up onto the roof above my window. And so I stay there and watch for him to come back, but when he does, I flinch, badly, just because he's so quiet I didn't have any warning (and I startle easy anyhow). And he drifts away into the far neighbor's yard, and then I watch him drift around for a bit, until he finally disappears, absolutely soundless.

My Fan Moment.
In my dream I was at a school/work/place where you go everyday. Also who was there, was Jim Halpert. Yes. Jim Halpert. And he had this buddy, who was either someone I actually know, or just a dream person. And finally I worked up the nerve to hang out with them, and after a while I became really good friends with Jim Halpert. And I was soooooooo happy. Until later I woke up and remembered I had something to be happy about...and then remembered it was just a dream. So all my hopes were crushed.

In weekly news, we joined the YMCA. Again. It still smells the same. Been playing racquetball (or, "crazyinsaneracquetball, which may not actually resemble racquetball), some weight machines. I've been using the treadmills, 'cause the other week I walked round the park, and my weak hip joints started giving out about 2/3 the way through. I want to be a better walker. One day I will walk around the worldz.

AX friends started dropping in. Jacqi and Jennifer school up northwise, and have just came back down for the first time in a long time. So Jacqi helped us sew, and we finished!! Except for patches from ebay, which shooooooooooooooooould come in "soon." Which is good, since the AX is next Friday. Gasp. Jennifer managed to shift out of allll sewing, by finally getting here just today. Happy Thursday, you!

Here's Jacqi as Haruhi:



Oh, and I almost forgot, we replanted the garden, in half wine barrels. Sooo cute.



Here's my Bountiful Garden.



And my Cactuar Family.



D'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

-Steph

summmmmmmmmmmr

Happy Thursday!

I somehow managed to not get dressed today. I really meant to -- first thing I did was do laundry, 'cause my Thursday clothes were dirty. And they're still sitting clean in the basket somewhere by now. Buuuuut....I never got around to it. Yay.

Been going to Carolyn's house to sew like everyday. All the ties are done, three-ish of the tops are mostly done. Things need to be ironed, for sure. Need to buy more fabric, but we bought them out last time, and they may have restocked by tomorrow.

Also, we invented a fun dice game! We have six dice, right? On the floor? Pick any number (1-6, of course)(say, 4) and then you sorta hit the dice with your hand or finger, making it flip. If you get this 4, you hit another die. If you don't, the other person goes. The ones you do flip to 4, the other person can't flip. But they can try to use a free die to knock it over. If they successfully do that, and either one rolls into a 4, that person gets to go again, and the new 4 is theirs. (you can also knock a die into another free die, too) Dice bouncing off of you are legal, but you can't hold them. Also illegal is just pushing it so it just sorta changes sides. When all dice show 4, the player with the most wins. If it's a tie (when playing with 6 dice, or an even number), then you take the number higher (5) and you take turns flipping them until someone gets that, and that's the winner. It's so fun.

AND. The Final Jeopardy question just now was Casino Royale, the book. I totally got that one right.

I also got 17 points, with is pretty good. I think my average last summer was either 12 or 14...so I've improved. Watching the kid/teen/college games are painful 'cause I usually get like 25....they're just ridiculously dumbed down.

Sports bumped Jeopardy, which is why I was watching it at 10 PM.

I mean, we do a lot of sewing. It's really fun.

Another exciting news of the week is that Vicious' flower bloomed. You can see it on my flickr. It's totally amazing and unexpected.

My favorite shows right now are Good Eats and Colbert Report. I want to make some chocolate waffles.

OKAY. Good night to you all.

-Steph

Pretty much officially two years running, w00t.

Happy Casino Royale Thursday! I know it's over now, for most of you, but I just got around to this. You see, my day was filled with pursuing the fine arts, primarily those of video photography and tailoring. Seemstressing. Sewing. Cosplaying.

I taped my mom's fifth grade musical play thing, "Samuelita." About a little "Mexican" girl who gets evangelized against her town and family's wishes, and then gets to go to school. Hoorays. I'm capturing it as we speak, to make a DVD tonight to send back to school with mom in the morning, so the kiddies can see how great they were.

The rest of the day! Cosplay central. I'll walk you through it.

Ouran High School Host Club is a show about a group of guys (and a girl, but whatever) who run a host club at their school full of rich kids. It's hilarious. Their school uniforms are black pants and blue jacket things, and ties. Our goal is to make the jacket things and the ties, and sooner or later the ebay guy will get his act together so we can get the school badges in time to iron on.

Carolyn's the shape master, and has been in charge of putting together costumes from her mind year after year. Western-style coat tops are proving unreasonably weird. But they're coming along. The first one's almost finished, I've worn it. Needs sleeves. Should turn out good.

My job's been making ties. Dark blue ties, with a purple stripe down the middle. I made a tie before, for Touya...but I'm making these completely differently than that one. For one, I have a poster board pattern, rather than using the cut-up tie I bought at a thrift store. It looks like this:

So I put that on the fabric, trace it, cut it out a bit bigger than that, fold on the traced line, pin the extra down, and then sew it into a tie-shape. I've done two so far, by hand, but I'll probably stop being crazy and start using my mom's machine. Carolyn's has been busy with the tops, so. Then I pin this purple ribbon we bought onto it, and Carolyn does sew that down. The two we've finished look something like this:

Not quite 100% finished.

Then, buttons. Made buttons. With these friendly little things:

They're great on the thumbs. You wrap the fabric around the front, and try to get it hooked onto the teeth there, and then you quckly snap a backing onto it, and then you've got yourself a putton of the same color as your jacket. We didn't you this one because it inexplicably came defective as it doesn't have a loop to be a button. You'll see what I mean in this picture, of the finished buttons:

Sew beautiful.

This hand sewing and fabric hooking takes a lot longer than it sounds. That's why it took all day. The one tie only took one day, start to finish, but the other one I started yesterday. Still have to make four more. And poor Carolyn, needing to be making, what, five and a half more? For the pack we're bring along.

The finished product will look something like this:

I'd love to chat more, but I'm sorta outta time today. We'll play poker some other day, alright? The video is almost done capturing, so I'll attend to that. I'll keep you updated on AX progress if you want.

-Steph

How is it Thursday again??

Happy Full Moon Thursday! /End of the Month Thursday! /Thirsday!

Hold on, I'm eating some pie.

Ok. It's a great sort of Thursday that starts with a trip to the dentist. XP. I've got a stunty tooth, you may not know. It's malformed, and maybe it'll get capped soon. Other than that, I should floss.

Rest of the day spent hanging out, playing "DDR" on the computer, watching tv, and doing math.

"Doing MATH?" I know you must be screaming at your screen right now, "Stephanie NO, we must find you a doctor AT ONCE!!" Hahah, no, gentle reader! It was in my allotted math for the year; math regarding the Anime Expo. The only crunching of numbers I rejoice in are solely related to adding hotel tax and dividing fabric costs by number of wearers. These are great numbers, and the math is a wonder to see (and a pain to figure out the next day).

So, the Great Cosplay Race has officially started this year. And with a whole month to go before the AX! We surely are improving. We're going as the members of the Ouran High School Host Club, and beyond our standard group is a pack of newcomers who are basically making up every character in this show. We really will be a pack, and I expect much photography to be directed at us. Of course, with Host Club being ever-popular, we'll likely have some competition. But we will prevail! Through sheer strength of numbers!!

Great numbers.

This week's also been "spend money on tv/movies" week. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Honestly, it could have been better, but I'm not complaining so much as to not enjoy it. It was fun. Dark, a little, not as outlandishly hilarious as Dead Man's Chest. I want to see Curse of the Black Pearl again, separate One from TwoandThree in my mind. TwoandThree are almost like a whole separate movie. But they're not bad. Bought the soundtrack for At World's End, and I've been enjoying that as well. (Hans Zimmer composed TwoandThree, another difference from One, composed primarily by Zimmer-protege Klaus Badelt). There's a pirate dirge and a rollicking new theme competing with the old. But the old is still very fun to blare in your car with the windows rolled down. ^^

On the same purchase as said CD, I also ran across the complete series of Firefly (as if it sold in any other format) for $16.99. A steal. That's a little more than a dollar an episode. It's a dollar and 31 cents, if my math serves me right. (a math splurge. it's okay if it's for something entirely irrelevant to life) I keep wanting to pop it in and watch all of it in one go (wouldn't that be amazing), but I'm waiting for my lazy sister to finish with school and come home to watch it with me. We have plenty things to watch, like Entourage. And something else. Heroes.

Side note - Veronica Mars was cancelled. There may be a resolution work in the future (think Serenity, Firefly fans), but who knows. Mourn with me.

And whilst at Blockbuster, picked up Little Miss Sunshine, Lucky # Slevin, and Stranger than Fiction for a grand sum of $20. Haven't seen the first yet, but I figured it was worth buying, what I know of it. Slevin I will always love, and now I get to watch the commentaries. Same with Fiction, which I've seen twice, twice and a half in the last week or so. Also picked up the script at B&N, which is so lucky I can't even believe. Being a movie about writing, I am inherently interested in the script....looked for it online, but then there it was, right in front of my face, and it's everything I ever wanted. More or less. Zach Helm, the screenwriter, is a funny guy. He and I share writing characteristics, as shown by some author's notes, which I'm taking as a good sign.

Have also been spending the last weekish researching Europe for the background of this story series I have floating around in my head. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll just say it started off a random, Random experience at Vons last summer, and now it's one of my epic mind-stories. I battled my mind-bloat by writing every scrap of plot outline I have in my head. Three pages. Nice. And things have been aligning for this, like when I suddenly had to give Callum a last name, the first one I clicked on originated in the very place I'd already planned him to have been born. It was spooky.

Oh, when the kids and their parents were here (hahah, I mean Kevin and Gretchen and the little ones), outings were had, and pictures were taken. Expect some evidence of these to show up on Flickr sooner or later. Those little ones are soooooo cute, just crazy. Absolutely outta their minds crazy. The little one? Eating her corn and then suddenly: "Skywishes isn't shy!!" Yeah, I know, totally predictable. It's great.

Ah-ha, so I seem to have been more "into it" this week, so I'll let you catch your collective breaths. I'll see you all next month, hahah.

-Steph

Invasion!

Happy Thursday!

My brother and his family is here to visit from Colorado! I want to direct you to my Flickr to see pictures of them, but I haven't taken any yet. I do, though, have a set there, my Japanese presentation on my family, that is relevant. In Japanese, though. But I have pictures on my camera right now that I need to put on my computer.

I really want to write something interesting today, but I am again distracted by the tv. But today it's Studio 60, which I've never seen before. It's not bad. It's a show about a live show, which I sorta know about from silly film class. Live television is one thing I will never do. But Studio 60 is weird. It's like 30 Rock in premise, but not as funny. It's like ER in it's intense shifting around between people and their issues. It ain't as good as 30 Rock. Or most shows.

Veronica Mars ended, and it was good enough. I still need to see the second season, but the first season was truly epic. Lost was strange. Very strange. Office finale was cute.

Oh, sadday because I didn't wear my Thursday clothes because they were dirty. Did my laundry last week *on* Thursday, silly me.

Hm, seems the internet cut out just now. Hope this goes through when I'm done.

So I've been having these intense dreams where all sorts of plotty things happen in distinct places with well-developed characters. And we have conversations and conflicts and wars and bake sales and stuff. I think it's because I haven't written anything for like a month and a half, so I have like, the mind-bloat, and it's coming out at night. I wish the dreams made more sense so that I could remember them and write them.

Now Alton Brown's gonna teach me about tuna.

-Steph

1,543,151,900

Happy Thursday! That's my high score for Pokemon Pinball. I know, I'm awesome.

Today there was only one other guy in Yomama, and Carolyn thought he might work there, and I thought he might work at Vons....but when we were driving away, he drove away in front of us so we chased him! And he pulled into the back of the post office, so that mystery was solved.

Oh. Speaking of. I think I wimped out on that mystery thing. I'm way too lazy. And I already convinced myself of who the criminal was, and I didn't mean to. It was the girl. Of course.

I'm super tired. For no good reason. Gah. So I'm not super invested in being interesting today.

Can't wait to watch tonight's Office again later on the internet. It was pretty good. ^^ The summer is always sad when everything goes on their season finales and leaves us for dead. Except then those summer shows pop up, like that dancing one. But they're never as good as the real shows, y'know?

But movies! We rented all kinds of movies. Gonna see a bunch of things I meant to see but didn't: The Good Shepherd, Stranger than Fiction, Night at the Museum. Ok, three things. Also got Fulltime Killer for old times sake. Gonna apply to Blockbuster for working funs, since I saw something about free rentals. You know, to keep up my studies while I'm out of school. XD Still love my major.

Here's a list of names I'd give pets if I got them:

Kittens:
Roxas
Richard (the lion hearted) [a giant yellow one]
The Baron
Lazer
Simon
Simba II XD ....;_;

Puppies:
Snacks [some small one]
Czech [one of those little Scotties]
Jim (James) [Welsh Corgi]
John (Johnathan) [Great Dane]

I'm going to be a cat lady, on a cat farm. And some of them we'll mutate into tigers. And one of those tigers I will name Sammy.

Arrhharhhrhhgg.

See you next time!
-Steph

Summer. ^^

Happy Thursday!

First off, I'd like to say that I somehow managed to get a 91% in media class, which means that my only B was in clay class! I got 99/100 on my media class final because of ten bonus points I swung on the essays. Heeeeeeeee.

This summer I'm planning on making some sort of video project on abandoned old things in Ventura. So I've been reading up on the city, and it's very interesting. And then I drive around town and point out useless facts about buildings. ^^ I'm very fun to be around nowadays.

Oh dear, how I've been driving. Not well! ......Sorry. ;p I drove downtown by myself to check out the buildings I'd just read about (and go to this crazy hidden park we discovered over spring break), and I even went into a store and asked them about my thrift store camera all on my own. It was an adventure. But I think I don't really like being downtown on my own. =/

I don't think I like being home alone all day, either. Dad's a work, and mom's at work, but yesterday and tomorrow she's at camp. Today, too, but I thought that might be implied. I've been watching Veronica Mars online yesterday and today. I'm just an ep and a half away from finishing season one, but they load so slowly. But man, that's always been a good show. Shoot. I love it.

But me and dad went out to dinner today, just got back. We went out to this restaurant, the Vagabond Inn restaurant....now that's a shady place. Hahah. It was packed, too. We talked about his snazzy new camera and took pictures of a napkin to see how the different settings work. (I like techno stuff, according to my dad, who's talking to my sister on the phone behind me) I already knew some camera stuff, in a video camera context, but still cameras are a bit different. I want to take pictures! And make movies. So I think I will.

OH. My dad is good at reminding me what happened today, as he tells my sister behind me. I went with him to a Rotary lunch today, at that new park with the water stuff? Hahah, old people. It was fun, since there was free food, and I got to go on a tour which went into the authorized personnel only building where all the pool filters and heaters are. And then a guy gave me a cooke. XD And then as we were leaving, we started talking to this one guy, who started talking to us about rockets. Yes. Rockets. He launches them, for fun. In the desert. He's very enthusiastic about rockets. It was adorable. Old people, man.

So other than that, I've just been sleeping, and playing DDR, a bit of FFXII. TV. Veronica Mars, of course. Lost really freaked me out last night, especially since I was all alone.......geez, man. That's a weird show. Gonna do some cooking. Make some red bean paste and some Japanese sweets that contain that. See if anyone else but me likes 'em.

Well, it's about time to find out who really killed Lilly Kane. TTYL.

-Steph

Halfway done?

HAPPY THURSDAY.

I'm a junior in college now. Actually, I have been this whole last semester, from credits, but now I am year-wise. Huzzah.

The most exciting thing that happened today was that I went on line and found that Dr. Creasman had graded our final papers. This would be the paper I wrote on the Office, which I saw I mentioned last week. Probably because I'd just finished writing it the day before. AND. I got 95/100!!! Which excited me first. THEN. I read his comments:


STEPHANIE- THIS IS A DELIGHTFUL PAPER—FUN TO READ AND IT HAS AN ACADEMIC EDGE TO IT. VERY NICELY DONE. I KNEW THIS WOULD BE A STRONG PAPER WHEN YOU PRESENTED ON IT IN CLASS. GOOD JOB. GOOD ACADEMIC SOURCES. YOU HAVE A FEW TINY SPELLING ERRORS AND OMISSIONS AND COULD PROBABLY EXPAND YOUR FAITH/SPIRITUAL IMPLICATIONS TO A FULL PARAGRAPH. BUT, THOSE ARE MINOR QUIBBLES IN AN OTHERWISE STRONG PAPER. P.S. CAN I USE THIS AS A MODEL FOR OTHER/FUTURE CLASSES? I WANT TO GIVE THEM A STUDENT-AUTHORED EXAMPLE TO SHOW THEM HOW TO DO IT RIGHT.


Like, dude. I told you that one of the academic sources was an article on the X-Files, right? Overall, I'm just thrilled.

Grade-wise, I see myself getting a B+ in that class. Possssssibly an A- if he is blind and doesn't see how awful my final essays were. The final was essays (which I know are ... just bad), and like the easiest multiple choice test ever. So if the multiple choice bit was weighted more than the essays, I'll say I have a A-.
Japanese: A. For sure.
Clay class: Not sure. A, probably.
Jesus class: A, shoot.
Film/Lit: ehhhhh, probably an A...-.

Our little house had one last splurge of bonding this last week. Monday was family dinner--we tried to go to Mediterranean, but the one place was like probably full of gangsters, and the other place was Coming Soon! So we went across the street to Dai Shogun, the cute little Japanese place my brother introduced me to. And Megan had never had Japanese food! Only sushi, she said. It was fun and cute, and the lady took our picture.

And then Tuesday was family lunch, and I made chicken curry for us all, and it was a hit. It's one of my new favorite things to eat. And it's hecka cheap, too.

Oh, and television was top class this week, too. Raines was not spectacular, but it almost made me cry. Veronica Mars is back (urg, finally!) and it was not spectacular, either, but the end made me roll around on the floor screaming and having little spasms. It was just so beautiful. Side note, how cool is it that two of my new most favorite shows are detective/mystery shows on at the same time? I think that's crazy cool. Lost was really intense, and I almost cried at Sawyer 'cause he reminded me of Ryan, who's my baby. For clarification: http://www.geocities.com/runrunhoshi/index.html . Here's rooting for a spectacular Office tonight and a rocking Raines tomorrow.

Ah, good, I unwittingly gave myself a segue for what I really wanted to talk about this week. Mysteries. I'm going to write one, because I never have before and yet they rank high in my list of genres to adore. A well written mystery is worth more than a bundle of sticks, in my book. So here's my proposition:

The Summer Project

In a gray world, one man is brave enough to wear brown.

Rusty Thursday, Private Investigator, is on the case. He seeks justice, and the truth.

Coming this summer to a Thursday near you.

What do you say to, this summer, a Thursday-sponsored side project of weekly installments of a mystery story you have a say in? I'll write a new bit every week, and it'll last all summer, until the culprit is caught. I'll set up a separate website for it, where every week's chapter will be posted, and there will be outlets for comments and discussion among the readers. And since I'm your bud and not some Hollywood exec, your comments and discussion will be heard! Y'know, it'd just be something fun and interesting to look forward to each week besides the standard journal entry. And you know how dull they got last summer (although one can blame Vons). I'm up for it, if there's an interest in it.

Right now I'm thinking that the crime is sabotage, and the Reds are involved. But, as we all know, Communism could just be a red herring.

Happiest Summer Thursday to you all,
-Steph