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")
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Blast from the Past
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
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
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Stuart Sutcliffe
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
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
Thursday, April 01, 2010
So Many Friends
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 areeggs 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 iseggs 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 loveno more autographs
ringo -Steph!
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
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
(I also learned Lady Madonna and that's about it.)
Peace and love, peace and love
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Every Movie
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 toCVS 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
Work was just a tiny baby morning thing, I was out by 1! So I took a walk to
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
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Video Game
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 forSpain 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
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
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
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
or w i d e o p e n s p a c e s. You get the idea.
f
a
l
l
i
n
g leaves
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
Thursday, March 11, 2010
23
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:
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
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
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Amp'd
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
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
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Rainshine
Happy Thursday! It's not often you check the weather and see a rain on one day, shiny sun on the next, and rain again after that -- and rarer that you believe it! But it was deffo rainy yesterday, and so nice and bright today. So it was 2 for 2, we'll see what tomorrow is like.
I worked every day this week so far, so I'm not sure if I have any exciting stories to share. My aunt and uncle came over and I had lunch with Carolyn. And I played Lego Rock Band, which is cute, because your band is made of Lego people. (How do they do chords with those fingerless hands?!)
Oh yeah, last Thursday was Azusa visit. Getting to the play was an adventure! I've been to San Bernardino...once? before? Ever? Never by myself and in the dark to boot. Only got a little lost, only was a little late. But I got a free ticket (for being late??) and got to see the whole thing, so that was a win.
Jammed with Beth quite a bit. Drove on an adventure narrated by Bob Dylan. Bought British candy. Went to a park. Bought records--of course. I got live albums of Bob Dylan and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and...the Old Brown Shoe/Ballad of John and Yoko single. Then we got tacos at the best taco cart and visited at Sam's, where we did not play Beatles Rock Band and we did watch DVRed Olympics! And then I drove home. A jam-packed two days.
I've also caught up on most of the tv I've missed this year so far. I thought I'd be episodes and episodes behind, but really there were only three or four for each. Oh except I forgot all about Heroes and Chuck; I'll do that tomorrow.
Lost is weird so far, no? The thing with that one person this week really stressed me out. I sorta feel like the pressure of having to eventually make sense might be knocking out their ability to just tell interesting stories. (Like that same one person, how would that person really have spent the last three years? I would have guessed jumping through time like the others, no?) (And Jacob. He's all, these people obey me but the person they thought I was might be the other one so when I send you to them for your safety and then lure you away because there's no safety there at all. What's your game, Jacob?!)
I had about five cups of tea today. Tea is wonderful. It's also George Harrison's birthday today. Although imdb thinks it was yesterday.
That's all.
-Steph
I worked every day this week so far, so I'm not sure if I have any exciting stories to share. My aunt and uncle came over and I had lunch with Carolyn. And I played Lego Rock Band, which is cute, because your band is made of Lego people. (How do they do chords with those fingerless hands?!)
Oh yeah, last Thursday was Azusa visit. Getting to the play was an adventure! I've been to San Bernardino...once? before? Ever? Never by myself and in the dark to boot. Only got a little lost, only was a little late. But I got a free ticket (for being late??) and got to see the whole thing, so that was a win.
Jammed with Beth quite a bit. Drove on an adventure narrated by Bob Dylan. Bought British candy. Went to a park. Bought records--of course. I got live albums of Bob Dylan and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and...the Old Brown Shoe/Ballad of John and Yoko single. Then we got tacos at the best taco cart and visited at Sam's, where we did not play Beatles Rock Band and we did watch DVRed Olympics! And then I drove home. A jam-packed two days.
I've also caught up on most of the tv I've missed this year so far. I thought I'd be episodes and episodes behind, but really there were only three or four for each. Oh except I forgot all about Heroes and Chuck; I'll do that tomorrow.
Lost is weird so far, no? The thing with that one person this week really stressed me out. I sorta feel like the pressure of having to eventually make sense might be knocking out their ability to just tell interesting stories. (Like that same one person, how would that person really have spent the last three years? I would have guessed jumping through time like the others, no?) (And Jacob. He's all, these people obey me but the person they thought I was might be the other one so when I send you to them for your safety and then lure you away because there's no safety there at all. What's your game, Jacob?!)
I had about five cups of tea today. Tea is wonderful. It's also George Harrison's birthday today. Although imdb thinks it was yesterday.
That's all.
-Steph
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Infiltration Thursday
Happy Thursday! Welcome back to the APU computer lab! That's how many Thursdays beamed from here? Two at least since I've graduated. And probably a bunch from when I lived in here when my laptop died. Those were the days, eh?
Bass is coming along well. Got a tape (yes, a tape) from the library; Bass Basics 2. Dunno what's on volume one. But so far this second installment is just at my level. We're learning rhythms! And I printed out some more tabs to increase my "songs I can play with" playlist. So now it includes "Girl," "Hey Jude," "Honey Pie," "Little Boxes," "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper," and I'm learning "And I Love Her" and "Like a Rolling Stone."
Okay what does it mean when individual fingers on your hand start twitching back and forth without you doing it? When I had my laptop, my pointer finger would do it occasionally, and I thought it was from using the track pad. But just now my right thumb did it, and then my pinkie. :<
Oh hey, let's change subjects!!! I have a shiny new niece!! Born on Valentine's Day!!! Cassidy Joy Miner!!! So that's wonderful and lovely. A great middle name, too.
So I am at APU today biding my time until I can drive out to San Bernardino to see Sam in a play, Legend of the Arrowhead. It's a musical about the history of that same city. I believe. It's going to be the best show ever and I can't wait to see it. And then tell you all about it.
Then tomorrow I will hang out with Beth and maybe Sam and jam and do all sorts of fun things that one can do on a day off. Listen to more Bob Dylan! Having heard less than 30 songs of his, I have a ways to go, but here's my faves so far: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright; Masters of War; Summer Days. And If Not For You, which George Harrison also recorded and here they are dueting in a most perfect duet.
Here are my fave Dylan lyrics, because the major attraction of his music is the stories he presents:
From "Ballad of a Thin Man"
You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
From "Summer Days"
She's looking into my eyes, she's holding my hand
She's looking into my eyes, she's holding my hand
She says, "You can't repeat the past." I say, "You can't? What do you mean, you can't? Of course you can."
Haha just the tone of how he says it. Reminds me of the Conchords, a bit.
From "Absolutely Sweet Marie"
Well, I got the fever down in my pockets
The Persian drunkard, he follows me
Yes, I can take him to your house but I can't unlock it
You see, you forgot to leave me with the key
Oh, where are you tonight, sweet Marie?
If you know any cool songs I should try to learn, plz to be letting me know!
Furthermore, if you know any cool songs I should just plain listen to, send 'em my way! I <3 teh music.
Lol, my playlist is a mix of Dylan and Buddy Holly, which makes for comic transitions. I'm starting in the '60s and working outwards from there, it seems.
Okay Thursday pals, I'm outta ideas and or ramblings about old music, so I'll drift away. Keep being the cool folks you are.
-Steph
Bass is coming along well. Got a tape (yes, a tape) from the library; Bass Basics 2. Dunno what's on volume one. But so far this second installment is just at my level. We're learning rhythms! And I printed out some more tabs to increase my "songs I can play with" playlist. So now it includes "Girl," "Hey Jude," "Honey Pie," "Little Boxes," "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper," and I'm learning "And I Love Her" and "Like a Rolling Stone."
Okay what does it mean when individual fingers on your hand start twitching back and forth without you doing it? When I had my laptop, my pointer finger would do it occasionally, and I thought it was from using the track pad. But just now my right thumb did it, and then my pinkie. :<
Oh hey, let's change subjects!!! I have a shiny new niece!! Born on Valentine's Day!!! Cassidy Joy Miner!!! So that's wonderful and lovely. A great middle name, too.
So I am at APU today biding my time until I can drive out to San Bernardino to see Sam in a play, Legend of the Arrowhead. It's a musical about the history of that same city. I believe. It's going to be the best show ever and I can't wait to see it. And then tell you all about it.
Then tomorrow I will hang out with Beth and maybe Sam and jam and do all sorts of fun things that one can do on a day off. Listen to more Bob Dylan! Having heard less than 30 songs of his, I have a ways to go, but here's my faves so far: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright; Masters of War; Summer Days. And If Not For You, which George Harrison also recorded and here they are dueting in a most perfect duet.
Here are my fave Dylan lyrics, because the major attraction of his music is the stories he presents:
From "Ballad of a Thin Man"
You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
From "Summer Days"
She's looking into my eyes, she's holding my hand
She's looking into my eyes, she's holding my hand
She says, "You can't repeat the past." I say, "You can't? What do you mean, you can't? Of course you can."
Haha just the tone of how he says it. Reminds me of the Conchords, a bit.
From "Absolutely Sweet Marie"
Well, I got the fever down in my pockets
The Persian drunkard, he follows me
Yes, I can take him to your house but I can't unlock it
You see, you forgot to leave me with the key
Oh, where are you tonight, sweet Marie?
If you know any cool songs I should try to learn, plz to be letting me know!
Furthermore, if you know any cool songs I should just plain listen to, send 'em my way! I <3 teh music.
Lol, my playlist is a mix of Dylan and Buddy Holly, which makes for comic transitions. I'm starting in the '60s and working outwards from there, it seems.
Okay Thursday pals, I'm outta ideas and or ramblings about old music, so I'll drift away. Keep being the cool folks you are.
-Steph
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Jammin' With Edward
Happy Thursday! There are actually no Edwards involved, that's just a title of a Cowboy Bebop episode, and when I think of "jamming," that's what my mind auto-completes with.
So I've had a bass for two weeks, and this is what I have to show for it. It's actually pretty bad and after I recorded it (this is like the tenth take) I still debated actually putting it up. But it'll be a benchmark for improvement, no?
And admittedly, the poor tone has a lot to do with it being un-amped, and I was concentrating more on being loud than being good. One of these days I'll get an amp.
Because guess what. I have a bass! A mine all mine bass! For cheap as free or just cheap! From my neighbor! I named her Reilly!
But it's not Reilly in the recording, no, she's a little too jangly "in person" so I used the loaner bass whose strings seem to be a lot tighter. The new one probably needs a good looking over by a professional, I think. But still. Way cool.
I'm also amused because I'm using the guitar strap from off the Rock Band guitar still, and I used the USB microphone to record today. It's like the olden days, or the wild kingdom, where play is really just secretive learning of life roles. I mean, Rock Band : pouncing on a litter mate :: Guitar : pouncing on a gazelle.
Rock Band is an enabler.
Me and Carolyn went and saw New Moon at the cheap theater, and I'd say it was hardly worth my three dollars. But considering I saw the first one cheap as free (twice, somehow), it helps if I look at it as one dollar per viewing. That's a little more cost effective. Whereas Twilight surprised me and surpassed my abysmal expectations for it, New Moon -- held to the self same abysmal expectations -- flamboyantly failed to even try to meet them. Dumb, dumb, dumb movie.
Then I went to Pasadena and jammed with Beth. More than jamming, though, we went to restaurants (Pita Pit is the most creepy location in the world, and Maui Wowie was no more) and looked in windows of places that were closed and got harangued by sports fans and got coffee and looked at every book and visited every city and hugged Sam. But then we jammed until like three in the morning, so it was good.
But then I did inventory til late a few days later, and then I got sick, so yeah. I'll sneeze on you. But other than that it was a pretty chillaxing day. Jamming with Reilly.
-Steph
So I've had a bass for two weeks, and this is what I have to show for it. It's actually pretty bad and after I recorded it (this is like the tenth take) I still debated actually putting it up. But it'll be a benchmark for improvement, no?
And admittedly, the poor tone has a lot to do with it being un-amped, and I was concentrating more on being loud than being good. One of these days I'll get an amp.
Because guess what. I have a bass! A mine all mine bass! For cheap as free or just cheap! From my neighbor! I named her Reilly!
But it's not Reilly in the recording, no, she's a little too jangly "in person" so I used the loaner bass whose strings seem to be a lot tighter. The new one probably needs a good looking over by a professional, I think. But still. Way cool.
I'm also amused because I'm using the guitar strap from off the Rock Band guitar still, and I used the USB microphone to record today. It's like the olden days, or the wild kingdom, where play is really just secretive learning of life roles. I mean, Rock Band : pouncing on a litter mate :: Guitar : pouncing on a gazelle.
Rock Band is an enabler.
Me and Carolyn went and saw New Moon at the cheap theater, and I'd say it was hardly worth my three dollars. But considering I saw the first one cheap as free (twice, somehow), it helps if I look at it as one dollar per viewing. That's a little more cost effective. Whereas Twilight surprised me and surpassed my abysmal expectations for it, New Moon -- held to the self same abysmal expectations -- flamboyantly failed to even try to meet them. Dumb, dumb, dumb movie.
Then I went to Pasadena and jammed with Beth. More than jamming, though, we went to restaurants (Pita Pit is the most creepy location in the world, and Maui Wowie was no more) and looked in windows of places that were closed and got harangued by sports fans and got coffee and looked at every book and visited every city and hugged Sam. But then we jammed until like three in the morning, so it was good.
But then I did inventory til late a few days later, and then I got sick, so yeah. I'll sneeze on you. But other than that it was a pretty chillaxing day. Jamming with Reilly.
-Steph
Thursday, February 04, 2010
I'm Down
Happy Thursday. Yesterday was super warm and lovely, and I only worked like two and a half hours and then I went to the park -- but today was way cold and full of heartbreak. That is, I got to the final chapters of the Beatles biography I was reading, and it was tough going. The next one I read I'm going to get through 1966 and then put it down.
Observing someone's remarkable life from beginning to end, repeatedly, is an insane thing to do. Especially when eight of those years involve being the most influential pop act in history (and as a reader, you know that each year brings you closer to the devastating end). The "repeated" factor makes it that much more incomprehensible because you jump from the heartache of Get Back straight into the glee of A Hard Day's Night and it's like a vertigo attack. Worse, when you see the old ones on the tv, and then jump back forty five years to when they were lil' babies and you can't help but think they're still like that, joking and laughing, out there somewhere.
Ringo put out a single last year that I recently was pointed towards, and it's pretty captivating -- due mostly to the fact that I'm entirely sure that most of it is auto-tuned -- but captivating nonetheless.
One of my favorite things ever is watching young Ringo on stage. The happiest drummer in all the world. The good ol' days.
Maybe one day I'll emerge from my Beatlemania cocoon and actually have something significant to write about. But I'm still crushing pretty bad right now, so this is what you get.
I just spent like an hour trying to find a good clip of Ringo drumming, and ended up watching so many interviews instead. I'm just going to link to you I'm Down, because that's fun. And topical.
Speaking of playing the bass, my goal is to be able to play and have a seizure at the same time, just like Paul.
Beth came over on....one of these last days, and we had a jam session. Actually first we had brownies, then we went to a record store and bought every record (I got a Beach Boys concert recording, a Jimi Hendrix Experience smash hits album, and some Beatles interview excerpts from '64 and '66; Beth got Dylan and Cream and the Byrds and something else and George's first solo album All Things Must Pass, which is awesome). Then we went to Chipotle.
And then we jammed. Scoured the web for tabs and chords and tried our best for hours and hours. I totally sort of know the notes on the fret board now. Also had an extended "jam" of my playing a little riff based on the bass part from "Girl," I just played that and played that waiting for Beth to write a song to go with it.
We're gonna be a band. We'll be called MDMB, which stands for Minor Delta, Major Bravo, which were our nicknames one day. We'll write nonsense songs and do covers and we'll be very popular. Some of our songs will include "George Knows a Sexy Secret," "George Doesn't Know a Secret," "GearFab," "Leggy Eyebrowns," and "Gentle Moose."
But first I have to learn how to play, so don't reserve your tickets just yet. Busted out this instructional dvd that I am borrowing along with the guitar, and he (and the creepiest Andy you ever saw) taught me the E scale and how to play some worship songs.
I would have practiced again today, but there were bees in there. :<
So after I finished my book I played through all of Abbey Road on Rock Band. Even though that was the same as the bee room.
Speaking of writing songs, does anyone know how? Can you teach me?
-Steph
Observing someone's remarkable life from beginning to end, repeatedly, is an insane thing to do. Especially when eight of those years involve being the most influential pop act in history (and as a reader, you know that each year brings you closer to the devastating end). The "repeated" factor makes it that much more incomprehensible because you jump from the heartache of Get Back straight into the glee of A Hard Day's Night and it's like a vertigo attack. Worse, when you see the old ones on the tv, and then jump back forty five years to when they were lil' babies and you can't help but think they're still like that, joking and laughing, out there somewhere.
Ringo put out a single last year that I recently was pointed towards, and it's pretty captivating -- due mostly to the fact that I'm entirely sure that most of it is auto-tuned -- but captivating nonetheless.
One of my favorite things ever is watching young Ringo on stage. The happiest drummer in all the world. The good ol' days.
Maybe one day I'll emerge from my Beatlemania cocoon and actually have something significant to write about. But I'm still crushing pretty bad right now, so this is what you get.
I just spent like an hour trying to find a good clip of Ringo drumming, and ended up watching so many interviews instead. I'm just going to link to you I'm Down, because that's fun. And topical.
Speaking of playing the bass, my goal is to be able to play and have a seizure at the same time, just like Paul.
Beth came over on....one of these last days, and we had a jam session. Actually first we had brownies, then we went to a record store and bought every record (I got a Beach Boys concert recording, a Jimi Hendrix Experience smash hits album, and some Beatles interview excerpts from '64 and '66; Beth got Dylan and Cream and the Byrds and something else and George's first solo album All Things Must Pass, which is awesome). Then we went to Chipotle.
And then we jammed. Scoured the web for tabs and chords and tried our best for hours and hours. I totally sort of know the notes on the fret board now. Also had an extended "jam" of my playing a little riff based on the bass part from "Girl," I just played that and played that waiting for Beth to write a song to go with it.
We're gonna be a band. We'll be called MDMB, which stands for Minor Delta, Major Bravo, which were our nicknames one day. We'll write nonsense songs and do covers and we'll be very popular. Some of our songs will include "George Knows a Sexy Secret," "George Doesn't Know a Secret," "GearFab," "Leggy Eyebrowns," and "Gentle Moose."
But first I have to learn how to play, so don't reserve your tickets just yet. Busted out this instructional dvd that I am borrowing along with the guitar, and he (and the creepiest Andy you ever saw) taught me the E scale and how to play some worship songs.
I would have practiced again today, but there were bees in there. :<
So after I finished my book I played through all of Abbey Road on Rock Band. Even though that was the same as the bee room.
Speaking of writing songs, does anyone know how? Can you teach me?
-Steph
Thursday, January 28, 2010
BASS
Happy Thursday! Today is the second day of my having a bass guitar in the house. One step closer to the edge being in a band! and I'm about to break
Sorry, Linkin Park, you may not be my favorite band anymore. :<
Today revealed that the casualty of yesterday's initial practice session was my left shoulder and neck, those bits being all jammed up. The cause of this, it seems, was looking over at the fret board. I didn't expect that aspect to be that taxing. Tomorrow, certainly, I will be feeling it in my fingers. If I will be feeling anything at all.
I can accompany "Girl" in a mediocre fashion! I probably should be sitting down and learning technique first, but it was too tempting to try and jump right into McCartney's shoes and see what I could do. Don't worry, Paul, your job is safe...for now.
I have super confidence in learning to play, since there's actually practical knowledge I have stored away from the cello and the general music theory that went along with it. What would make it easier at this point would be to actually have my own (I'm borrowing one from a guy at church) and get to know it -- and have a amp instead of hot wiring it into the living room stereo system. But having any ol' one is of course better than having none at all, so it's sunshine and butterflies all around.
And I'm getting paid tomorrow and I'm getting so much back from taxes and soon hopefully I'll be offloading that cello, so my very own mine all mine bass is deffo in the works.
Work's been dead all week, even on my 7-hour day it was quite relaxing. So no stress there; bass practice in the afternoons; evenings chatting and writing nonsense screenplays for practice; it's not raining anymore -- I'm happy.
-Steph
Oh and I also made fishcakes for dinner. ty for the idea, Restaurant City!
Sorry, Linkin Park, you may not be my favorite band anymore. :<
Today revealed that the casualty of yesterday's initial practice session was my left shoulder and neck, those bits being all jammed up. The cause of this, it seems, was looking over at the fret board. I didn't expect that aspect to be that taxing. Tomorrow, certainly, I will be feeling it in my fingers. If I will be feeling anything at all.
I can accompany "Girl" in a mediocre fashion! I probably should be sitting down and learning technique first, but it was too tempting to try and jump right into McCartney's shoes and see what I could do. Don't worry, Paul, your job is safe...for now.
I have super confidence in learning to play, since there's actually practical knowledge I have stored away from the cello and the general music theory that went along with it. What would make it easier at this point would be to actually have my own (I'm borrowing one from a guy at church) and get to know it -- and have a amp instead of hot wiring it into the living room stereo system. But having any ol' one is of course better than having none at all, so it's sunshine and butterflies all around.
And I'm getting paid tomorrow and I'm getting so much back from taxes and soon hopefully I'll be offloading that cello, so my very own mine all mine bass is deffo in the works.
Work's been dead all week, even on my 7-hour day it was quite relaxing. So no stress there; bass practice in the afternoons; evenings chatting and writing nonsense screenplays for practice; it's not raining anymore -- I'm happy.
-Steph
Oh and I also made fishcakes for dinner. ty for the idea, Restaurant City!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Rainstorm
Happy Thursday! For the first time in maybe ever, we've had like a different rain storm every day this week. It's insane. And damp. Our door leaks, and I stood around in it for a really long time just now. More on that later.
There was rain so loud it woke me up, thunder so loud it rocked the house, lightning so close I saw the flash from under the curtain. Reports of hail, but I never saw any. Any day now, California is just going to float away. Bye, continental US!
When I'm not at work or sleeping (which are two things I do often) I'm probably listening to the Beatles. Sometimes one or more of these things overlap. I have some leads on selling my cello, followed by some leads on picking up a bass, and then I'll be all set to be the next McCartney. This is something I'm looking forward to greatly.
Finally saw HELP! and unfortunately followed it with MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR and so to make up for the mild disappointment/shocking disappointment of that experience, I went back to A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, and the world was right again. I still have YELLOW SUBMARINE waiting (on VHS! From the library!) but that's a different category altogether.
Just now, whilst standing in a damp carpet, I jammed out with my pops to the Beatles. The piano is next to the door, you see. It's an electric piano, which means he can record a drum track and then a bass track and then we can jam along to that (and also means that we could probably get electrocuted). Once I have my bass he won't need that bass track! But for now I just sing, which is suddenly a hobby of mine. TY, rockband.
After reading that George Harrison biography, and now that I'm in the middle of a general Beatles' history, one of the strongest things that stands out to me about their success is their single-minded passion to succeed.
Cleaned my room a bit today, which is to me always the first step in getting things done. Because if I was to go out and get an apartment, I couldn't just leave all this junk here OR take it with me, so I really need to get rid of most of this stuff so's to have piece of mind about materialistic freedom. Getting rid of the cello is also a part of this junk-dump; second stage in success-achieving is continuing to write and look for internships. Then I'm pretty sure 2010 will become the year it promises to be.
Avatar: Eh. Great graphics but truly average storytelling.
Gamer: Great visual style. Spent a lot of time on that, surely. Didn't spend any time on anything else.
The Invention of Lying: Much much much less funny than I had thought it would be.
Sherlock Holmes (the one on DVD where he fights dinosaurs): Some of the most unapologetic nonsense I've ever experienced.
I'm Not There: Didn't make sense to the non-Dylan-initiate.
Whu-oh. Blogger is having some sort of red ERROR bar up there, so I'm going to figure that out and/or put this up on Facebook. Be safe in this murderous weather!
-Steph
(Sorry this didn't make it out last night. Crazy the Internet.)
There was rain so loud it woke me up, thunder so loud it rocked the house, lightning so close I saw the flash from under the curtain. Reports of hail, but I never saw any. Any day now, California is just going to float away. Bye, continental US!
When I'm not at work or sleeping (which are two things I do often) I'm probably listening to the Beatles. Sometimes one or more of these things overlap. I have some leads on selling my cello, followed by some leads on picking up a bass, and then I'll be all set to be the next McCartney. This is something I'm looking forward to greatly.
Finally saw HELP! and unfortunately followed it with MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR and so to make up for the mild disappointment/shocking disappointment of that experience, I went back to A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, and the world was right again. I still have YELLOW SUBMARINE waiting (on VHS! From the library!) but that's a different category altogether.
Just now, whilst standing in a damp carpet, I jammed out with my pops to the Beatles. The piano is next to the door, you see. It's an electric piano, which means he can record a drum track and then a bass track and then we can jam along to that (and also means that we could probably get electrocuted). Once I have my bass he won't need that bass track! But for now I just sing, which is suddenly a hobby of mine. TY, rockband.
After reading that George Harrison biography, and now that I'm in the middle of a general Beatles' history, one of the strongest things that stands out to me about their success is their single-minded passion to succeed.
Cleaned my room a bit today, which is to me always the first step in getting things done. Because if I was to go out and get an apartment, I couldn't just leave all this junk here OR take it with me, so I really need to get rid of most of this stuff so's to have piece of mind about materialistic freedom. Getting rid of the cello is also a part of this junk-dump; second stage in success-achieving is continuing to write and look for internships. Then I'm pretty sure 2010 will become the year it promises to be.
Avatar: Eh. Great graphics but truly average storytelling.
Gamer: Great visual style. Spent a lot of time on that, surely. Didn't spend any time on anything else.
The Invention of Lying: Much much much less funny than I had thought it would be.
Sherlock Holmes (the one on DVD where he fights dinosaurs): Some of the most unapologetic nonsense I've ever experienced.
I'm Not There: Didn't make sense to the non-Dylan-initiate.
Whu-oh. Blogger is having some sort of red ERROR bar up there, so I'm going to figure that out and/or put this up on Facebook. Be safe in this murderous weather!
-Steph
(Sorry this didn't make it out last night. Crazy the Internet.)
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Early Thursday
Happy Thursday! I hope it's happier for you than it is for me, or at least that mine will only get better. Cupcakes are in the works, so I think there's a chance.
A couple lovely emails greeted me this morning, the first being "ty 4 teh monies" and the second being "o hai we noticed somfin suspishus ur welcom - Paypal."
DON'T WORRY. Paypal has it UNDER CONTROL. Or in any case "UNDER INVESTIGATION."
:< My monies....
And now for something completely different.
My favorite Beatles album right now is Revolver. Before that it was Rubber Soul and before that, Help! But right now it's Revolver, and I'll tell you why.
The first thing that strikes me is how just plain musical it is. It's heavier and more stylized than the early 50's influenced stuff, but not yet too heavy like the later Abbey Road stuff. You've got that intense string backing in "Eleanor Rigby" going into the backwards guitar solos in "I'm Only Sleeping" going into the sitar and accompanying Indian influence in "Love You To" and so on.
And even that opening selection showcases the diverse musical ability of each individual, yet the seemingly disparate themes and styles only tie it all together in an album that is so distinctively The Beatles. And you've got Ringo's mad skillz in "She Said She Said;" his sweet and simple vocals in the classic "Yellow Submarine," where he cracks one note (the last "sub"marine in the last verse) that makes my heart go to pudding every time.
And George's burgeoning love for Indian music of course in the song previously mentioned, continuing to dash a little color onto his band's legacy. But I can't get over his lead guitar, the sound of which is, to me at least, just as iconic as the vocal blend.
John's got his psychedelic on, in "Tomorrow Never Knows" and, more to the point, "She Said She Said," the lyrics of which come from a conversation they had with Peter Fonda whilst congregating in a bathtub whilst trippin' pretty heavily on acid.
And even McCartney busts out all the stops, "Eleanor Rigby" probably among the top tier of best Beatles' songs. "Good Day Sunshine" is also a delightful pick-me-up, but the high point for me in his case is "For No One" where he slings his voice around in such a way that always makes me wonder why I don't love him more.
Cons on the album are: "Taxman." Sorry, George, I know you don't get a lot of credit, but this song is not quite up to par with the rest of the pack. I feel like it would be a lot more comfortable on the previous album, Rubber Soul, only in terms of musical accomplishment.
Similarly, John's "Doctor Robert" is a half step down from the rest, too. And content-wise, it makes me do a big IDK.
Least favorite is McCartney's "Here, There, and Everywhere," which oddly was his contemporaries' favorite track on the album. It's just a little too...too. It's soul-sequel is undoubtedly "Martha My Dear," a song about the McCartney sheepdog, Martha.
So it's a good, solid album, and you should check it out!
On a related note (and pun), I'm looking into getting a bass guitar. You may be surprised to know that I used to have one! But, sadly, I was a fool and maybe played it four times ever. But now I want one again, and I will learn it and be in a band! The biggest fool to ever hit the big time.
Okay, that's my review, I'm going to go to Target and get stuff to make cupcakes with. And later I'mma go shoot zombies with Carolyn! The day is already looking up.
-Steph
A couple lovely emails greeted me this morning, the first being "ty 4 teh monies" and the second being "o hai we noticed somfin suspishus ur welcom - Paypal."
DON'T WORRY. Paypal has it UNDER CONTROL. Or in any case "UNDER INVESTIGATION."
:< My monies....
And now for something completely different.
My favorite Beatles album right now is Revolver. Before that it was Rubber Soul and before that, Help! But right now it's Revolver, and I'll tell you why.
The first thing that strikes me is how just plain musical it is. It's heavier and more stylized than the early 50's influenced stuff, but not yet too heavy like the later Abbey Road stuff. You've got that intense string backing in "Eleanor Rigby" going into the backwards guitar solos in "I'm Only Sleeping" going into the sitar and accompanying Indian influence in "Love You To" and so on.
And even that opening selection showcases the diverse musical ability of each individual, yet the seemingly disparate themes and styles only tie it all together in an album that is so distinctively The Beatles. And you've got Ringo's mad skillz in "She Said She Said;" his sweet and simple vocals in the classic "Yellow Submarine," where he cracks one note (the last "sub"marine in the last verse) that makes my heart go to pudding every time.
And George's burgeoning love for Indian music of course in the song previously mentioned, continuing to dash a little color onto his band's legacy. But I can't get over his lead guitar, the sound of which is, to me at least, just as iconic as the vocal blend.
John's got his psychedelic on, in "Tomorrow Never Knows" and, more to the point, "She Said She Said," the lyrics of which come from a conversation they had with Peter Fonda whilst congregating in a bathtub whilst trippin' pretty heavily on acid.
And even McCartney busts out all the stops, "Eleanor Rigby" probably among the top tier of best Beatles' songs. "Good Day Sunshine" is also a delightful pick-me-up, but the high point for me in his case is "For No One" where he slings his voice around in such a way that always makes me wonder why I don't love him more.
Cons on the album are: "Taxman." Sorry, George, I know you don't get a lot of credit, but this song is not quite up to par with the rest of the pack. I feel like it would be a lot more comfortable on the previous album, Rubber Soul, only in terms of musical accomplishment.
Similarly, John's "Doctor Robert" is a half step down from the rest, too. And content-wise, it makes me do a big IDK.
Least favorite is McCartney's "Here, There, and Everywhere," which oddly was his contemporaries' favorite track on the album. It's just a little too...too. It's soul-sequel is undoubtedly "Martha My Dear," a song about the McCartney sheepdog, Martha.
So it's a good, solid album, and you should check it out!
On a related note (and pun), I'm looking into getting a bass guitar. You may be surprised to know that I used to have one! But, sadly, I was a fool and maybe played it four times ever. But now I want one again, and I will learn it and be in a band! The biggest fool to ever hit the big time.
Okay, that's my review, I'm going to go to Target and get stuff to make cupcakes with. And later I'mma go shoot zombies with Carolyn! The day is already looking up.
-Steph
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Korma
Happy Thursday! I'm writing this super late so I'm going to rush it!
Today was unofficial George Harrison day. Mostly because the first Beatle biography I came across at the library was his, so that's what I've been reading. And Beth came over and we went and had Indian food! And then we went to a closing antique shop and she found me the Ringo album that has the song "Photograph" that was co-written by the two. $4.33!
Then we went home where Carolyn was waiting, and we watched most of the Concert For George, which was this big affair they put on on the first anniversary of his death. His adorable look-alike son stood around with a giant guitar, and Eric Clapton played and sang a lot, and they had an Indian orchestra, and Ringo sang "Photograph" and something else, and McCartney was in every one's way. Oh, and Tom Petty is the most frightening man on earth.
So of course after that we played Rock Band, and it was the best Thursday ever.
Beth was also over last...must have been Friday. We played Rock Band and HSM singing game, which was full of lols.
What else this week? Mostly Beatlemania and moving on into people's solo work. And by people I mean Harrison, since Ringo's isn't spectacular and I need to set aside some time to understand Lennon. McCartney isn't high on my list in any respect.
Me and my mom went on some walks, like around downtown because that's where the only open library is now. Makes me wish I lived somewhere nearer a downtown, so you could just hang out in the library then go see a movie next door, and then to the Indian place across the street, and maybe stop at some thrift stores on the way. That'd be cool.
Three days off this week! Super relaxing, since the holidays schedules were so hectic. But the moneys were so delicious.
Have a gear week!
-Steph
Today was unofficial George Harrison day. Mostly because the first Beatle biography I came across at the library was his, so that's what I've been reading. And Beth came over and we went and had Indian food! And then we went to a closing antique shop and she found me the Ringo album that has the song "Photograph" that was co-written by the two. $4.33!
Then we went home where Carolyn was waiting, and we watched most of the Concert For George, which was this big affair they put on on the first anniversary of his death. His adorable look-alike son stood around with a giant guitar, and Eric Clapton played and sang a lot, and they had an Indian orchestra, and Ringo sang "Photograph" and something else, and McCartney was in every one's way. Oh, and Tom Petty is the most frightening man on earth.
So of course after that we played Rock Band, and it was the best Thursday ever.
Beth was also over last...must have been Friday. We played Rock Band and HSM singing game, which was full of lols.
What else this week? Mostly Beatlemania and moving on into people's solo work. And by people I mean Harrison, since Ringo's isn't spectacular and I need to set aside some time to understand Lennon. McCartney isn't high on my list in any respect.
Me and my mom went on some walks, like around downtown because that's where the only open library is now. Makes me wish I lived somewhere nearer a downtown, so you could just hang out in the library then go see a movie next door, and then to the Indian place across the street, and maybe stop at some thrift stores on the way. That'd be cool.
Three days off this week! Super relaxing, since the holidays schedules were so hectic. But the moneys were so delicious.
Have a gear week!
-Steph
Thursday, December 31, 2009
2k10
Happy Thursday! It's the last Thursday of the year AND of the decade! Isn't that pretty cool. Without Thursday, this year would just go on forever. And who wants that?
I'm glad to report that Beatlemania is still in full effect. To the extent that yes, my poster did arrive yesterday! I would like to take a poll: who is your favorite Beatle?
Lol Firefox. "Beatlemania" is surely a word while its root, "Beatle" has that dreaded red underbar of misspelling. Incidentally, so does "underbar," but I never expected that one to pass.
Today at work was insane! I was at the register, with a line all the way back to the first row of shelves, for a full two hours straight. It's probably the busiest that store has ever been in its life. ('e's juss a liddle guy) I also had a creepy old man ask me out! Not a fan of that.
So 2009 was cool. I did a lot of nothing, and so many movies, and plenty of video games and I wrote a novel I got a fish tank and I lost 10 pounds and had to start paying health insurance and loans. :<
2010: What will you be? Not only a new year, but a new decade, full of unfulfilled promises. Haha, I mean, wondrous possibilities. What will the fads be? How will people dress, and what music will they listen to? How will people look back on it and what will they laugh at? No one knows yet!! Isn't that exciting.
Another poll: What was your favorite decade? Mine's the 40s.
This year I hope to move to LA and write a movie or two and see what the real world is like. I also want to beat all the Final Fantasies I've started. That would be nice.
Hokay, so I have dance parties to attend to, so I'll be off. I hope you all have a great night and a shiny new year!! Here goes nothin'.
-Steph
I'm glad to report that Beatlemania is still in full effect. To the extent that yes, my poster did arrive yesterday! I would like to take a poll: who is your favorite Beatle?
Lol Firefox. "Beatlemania" is surely a word while its root, "Beatle" has that dreaded red underbar of misspelling. Incidentally, so does "underbar," but I never expected that one to pass.
Today at work was insane! I was at the register, with a line all the way back to the first row of shelves, for a full two hours straight. It's probably the busiest that store has ever been in its life. ('e's juss a liddle guy) I also had a creepy old man ask me out! Not a fan of that.
So 2009 was cool. I did a lot of nothing, and so many movies, and plenty of video games and I wrote a novel I got a fish tank and I lost 10 pounds and had to start paying health insurance and loans. :<
2010: What will you be? Not only a new year, but a new decade, full of unfulfilled promises. Haha, I mean, wondrous possibilities. What will the fads be? How will people dress, and what music will they listen to? How will people look back on it and what will they laugh at? No one knows yet!! Isn't that exciting.
Another poll: What was your favorite decade? Mine's the 40s.
This year I hope to move to LA and write a movie or two and see what the real world is like. I also want to beat all the Final Fantasies I've started. That would be nice.
Hokay, so I have dance parties to attend to, so I'll be off. I hope you all have a great night and a shiny new year!! Here goes nothin'.
-Steph
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Thursday Happy Christmas
Happy Thursday! And also Merry Christmas, to those of you who had to wait this long for it. We were super busy at the store today, although I was warned that tomorrow is the biggest refund day of the year. :<
So Christmas was good! We did shopping and baking and family Christmas things. Here's something you need to bake right now:
Golden Kolacky
Blend one stick butter (1/2 cup) with 4 oz. cream cheese. Add a cup of flour. Refrigerate an hour or so.
Roll it out and make squares one way or another. The recipe said 2 1/2 inch squares but I didn't measure. THEN. put a little jam or preserves on each square and fold over two corners. Like a broken taco. And then bake them for like 10 minutes at 375.
Don't bite them too soon, or the jam will burn your face. I used apricot. Tastes just like breakfast.
And my sister made some pretty good pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from the same book. I made Russian tea cakes with crushed up candy cane, but it would have been better with Andes or something less crunchy. We made dough for Finnish nut logs, but I didn't get around to baking them until like yesterday. They're alright.
I sewed my sister an apron that was sort of cute, but I forgot to take a picture. And I made my mom a pink fleece capish thing with brown fuzzy collar thing. And there's fringe! I did my first functional button holing on these projects.
Does anyone need an apron? I'll make you one. To order.
Also, come visit me, and I'll cook for you. These are things I love to do.
Something else I love is Ringo Starr. I got my dad a remastered DVD set of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, and we watched that. I sorta grew up with the Beatles, but not really, and just since the Rock Band came out am I learning about them for real. What a cool band. And Ringo is my fave.
Also, me and Carolyn beat Borderlands yesterday. The ending was a surprise. A large surprise.
Merry Christmas!
-Steph
So Christmas was good! We did shopping and baking and family Christmas things. Here's something you need to bake right now:
Golden Kolacky
Blend one stick butter (1/2 cup) with 4 oz. cream cheese. Add a cup of flour. Refrigerate an hour or so.
Roll it out and make squares one way or another. The recipe said 2 1/2 inch squares but I didn't measure. THEN. put a little jam or preserves on each square and fold over two corners. Like a broken taco. And then bake them for like 10 minutes at 375.
Don't bite them too soon, or the jam will burn your face. I used apricot. Tastes just like breakfast.
And my sister made some pretty good pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from the same book. I made Russian tea cakes with crushed up candy cane, but it would have been better with Andes or something less crunchy. We made dough for Finnish nut logs, but I didn't get around to baking them until like yesterday. They're alright.
I sewed my sister an apron that was sort of cute, but I forgot to take a picture. And I made my mom a pink fleece capish thing with brown fuzzy collar thing. And there's fringe! I did my first functional button holing on these projects.
Does anyone need an apron? I'll make you one. To order.
Also, come visit me, and I'll cook for you. These are things I love to do.
Something else I love is Ringo Starr. I got my dad a remastered DVD set of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, and we watched that. I sorta grew up with the Beatles, but not really, and just since the Rock Band came out am I learning about them for real. What a cool band. And Ringo is my fave.
Also, me and Carolyn beat Borderlands yesterday. The ending was a surprise. A large surprise.
Merry Christmas!
-Steph
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Fake Christmas Ahoy!
Happy Thursday! For some of you, Christmas is only a week away! For some of you, and by that I mean my family, Christmas is the day after tomorrow!!!11!1!!!
My sister flew into town today, and had a very exciting day including going to a museum. I did not get to go to a museum, because I had to work. Sadface. But later we're gonna get our drink on and play Beatles Rockband Yeah!
We went to this Mexican place that has a bakery in the back, so I'm just a little sugared out right now.
What I forgot to tell you about Sarah Chronnorcles is that I got to the end. And by forgot I mean I hadn't watched it yet and by end I mean that horrible season three set-up and then they were canceled. Seriously, I'm glad they were stopped; season three would have been a bucket of ridiculous. BUT. Season two was actually reasonably good. The high points were the stand-alone episodes that felt free to be artistic and play with storytelling and time management. It may have been because they had no pressure from the audience? And by that of course I mean that there was no audience.
But no. There became a new robot who did even more wonderfully robotty things, and that was a major plus. My least favorite ever character from BSG started being on it, and that was a major minus but at least I could skip over those scenes without too much guilt. So, all in all, it ended up being a pretty decent show. It just took them too long to warm up.
Hmm now I feel like I have run out of news. Got all my shopping done in time for Fake Christmas, but still gotta go out tomorrow to drive my sister to get her shop on. Then we're gonna bake and sing and dance and have a merry time. I made a chocolate roll, like a cake rolled up with whipped cream inside, and it was like the best thing I ever made. I'll make you one. For real Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Next year.
Have a good one, everybody!
-Steph
My sister flew into town today, and had a very exciting day including going to a museum. I did not get to go to a museum, because I had to work. Sadface. But later we're gonna get our drink on and play Beatles Rockband Yeah!
We went to this Mexican place that has a bakery in the back, so I'm just a little sugared out right now.
What I forgot to tell you about Sarah Chronnorcles is that I got to the end. And by forgot I mean I hadn't watched it yet and by end I mean that horrible season three set-up and then they were canceled. Seriously, I'm glad they were stopped; season three would have been a bucket of ridiculous. BUT. Season two was actually reasonably good. The high points were the stand-alone episodes that felt free to be artistic and play with storytelling and time management. It may have been because they had no pressure from the audience? And by that of course I mean that there was no audience.
But no. There became a new robot who did even more wonderfully robotty things, and that was a major plus. My least favorite ever character from BSG started being on it, and that was a major minus but at least I could skip over those scenes without too much guilt. So, all in all, it ended up being a pretty decent show. It just took them too long to warm up.
Hmm now I feel like I have run out of news. Got all my shopping done in time for Fake Christmas, but still gotta go out tomorrow to drive my sister to get her shop on. Then we're gonna bake and sing and dance and have a merry time. I made a chocolate roll, like a cake rolled up with whipped cream inside, and it was like the best thing I ever made. I'll make you one. For real Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Next year.
Have a good one, everybody!
-Steph
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Future is Not Set
Happy Thursday! Last week I was too busy talking about something (NaNoWriMo?) to also tell you that that was the week I watched the second two (middle two?) TERMINATOR movies. Let's discuss.
Before BSG there was Matrix, and before the Matrix there was Terminator, and before Terminator there was the original BSG, but let's go back a step. Basically, you know how it goes: our incensed desire to build bigger and better and faster, our reliance and unthinking dependence on technology will be our doom. Because one day it'll be biggest and best and fastest, and the one thing the newly-awakened technology will invariably conclude is that humanity has no place in this universe (except in the Matrix, where it has a tiny place).
I told you about how I saw the first TERMINATOR a while back; its 80s veneer distracted me from being able to appreciate it. But without it you would have no T2, which, for all its equally cringe-worthy 90s-ness, is a really good movie.
And then of course they made the third, which was slightly more sophisticated than the first, but still a nonsense movie by any calculation. Haven't seen :Salvation, yet, but now that I've seen the original movies, the trailer really really makes me want to see it.
In the meantime (the two more weeks I have to wait), I rented TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. Let's talk about this a moment, yes.
A) Unfortunate title. I usually just call it "the Sarah Cronnah Cronnacrles."
B) Misfortunate casting. If the idea is to return emphasis to Sarah Cronnah (from John Connor, who steals the show the minute he has the chance; but, hey, it's his fate and all), then it probably would have been a good idea to cast someone who could command your attention. Suffice it to say they did not.
C) Nonsense storytelling. To be fair to the above (and the others, who are clearly trying so hard to act), the performers are seriously handicapped by the ridiculous things they are expected to perform. Everything from dialogue to series plot is poor. Just out of the gate, and it's already worse than HEROES.
D) Television budget makes for a sad action movie. Every battle was carefully crafted and executed in the movies. They just don't have the capabilities to reproduce that scale of stunt on a weekly basis. It deflates the risk felt at each encounter, because you know they'll get away from the cops one way or another. The show doesn't particularly care how they do it.
E) FBI guy. Unnecessary.
All of this is a real tragedy, because after seeing the Terminator Trilogy, I can totally see why someone would want to resurrect this playground and have it available on a weekly basis. The Terminator story is Cool. Terminators are Cool. The Connors are Cool. Sarah Cronnacrles is not.
Things that make me sit through episodes while I would rather be hitting myself in the head with a hammer:
A) Summer Glau. And did you see her on DOLLHOUSE last week? She has an ability to become the character - an ability I had previously assumed she did not possess. Glad to be proven wrong.
B) Thomas Dekker. One of my favorite characters from HEROES. He was in like, maybe four episodes. Stupid HEROES.
C) Cameron the Terminator. This should actually be a subset under (A), but I'm struggling to come up with positive thoughts. I love this Terminator because she's ridiculous and gets to say ridiculous things that only robots can get away with saying. In conclusion, I love robots.
D) Bear McCreary. My man is going to get pigeonholed for only writing music for robots-who-look-human-destroyed-humanity-but-some-are-our-friends-sci-fi shows.
I guess that's it. It's silly that I'm only watching it because of the impact T2 had on me. THAT MOVIE. Whereas the first (and third. and fourth? TBD) movie only really wanted to be an action movie, T2 effortlessly combines real action with real drama and real stakes and real emotional impact. The two Connors are equally strong leads with equally strong character--if you thought Terminator was about Schwarzenegger, you're terribly mistaken.
I mean, I'm even willing to go along with their messed up timeline. It's so integral to what these characters believe, that you CAN change the future, that I don't even want to fight them on it. Guess I don't have the heart to tell them they're wrong. Or, as in the case of Terminator 3, they'll find out the hard way.
Anyway, all this to say that you need to see T2; I need to see :Salvation; I'm not sad Sarah Chronnorcles got canceled. I am still sad about DOLLHOUSE.
This week and next week at work is Employee Appreciation Week (they appreciate us so much a week is 13 days) and we have 10 free rentals instead of five. I'm open to suggestions.
-Steph
Before BSG there was Matrix, and before the Matrix there was Terminator, and before Terminator there was the original BSG, but let's go back a step. Basically, you know how it goes: our incensed desire to build bigger and better and faster, our reliance and unthinking dependence on technology will be our doom. Because one day it'll be biggest and best and fastest, and the one thing the newly-awakened technology will invariably conclude is that humanity has no place in this universe (except in the Matrix, where it has a tiny place).
I told you about how I saw the first TERMINATOR a while back; its 80s veneer distracted me from being able to appreciate it. But without it you would have no T2, which, for all its equally cringe-worthy 90s-ness, is a really good movie.
And then of course they made the third, which was slightly more sophisticated than the first, but still a nonsense movie by any calculation. Haven't seen :Salvation, yet, but now that I've seen the original movies, the trailer really really makes me want to see it.
In the meantime (the two more weeks I have to wait), I rented TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. Let's talk about this a moment, yes.
A) Unfortunate title. I usually just call it "the Sarah Cronnah Cronnacrles."
B) Misfortunate casting. If the idea is to return emphasis to Sarah Cronnah (from John Connor, who steals the show the minute he has the chance; but, hey, it's his fate and all), then it probably would have been a good idea to cast someone who could command your attention. Suffice it to say they did not.
C) Nonsense storytelling. To be fair to the above (and the others, who are clearly trying so hard to act), the performers are seriously handicapped by the ridiculous things they are expected to perform. Everything from dialogue to series plot is poor. Just out of the gate, and it's already worse than HEROES.
D) Television budget makes for a sad action movie. Every battle was carefully crafted and executed in the movies. They just don't have the capabilities to reproduce that scale of stunt on a weekly basis. It deflates the risk felt at each encounter, because you know they'll get away from the cops one way or another. The show doesn't particularly care how they do it.
E) FBI guy. Unnecessary.
All of this is a real tragedy, because after seeing the Terminator Trilogy, I can totally see why someone would want to resurrect this playground and have it available on a weekly basis. The Terminator story is Cool. Terminators are Cool. The Connors are Cool. Sarah Cronnacrles is not.
Things that make me sit through episodes while I would rather be hitting myself in the head with a hammer:
A) Summer Glau. And did you see her on DOLLHOUSE last week? She has an ability to become the character - an ability I had previously assumed she did not possess. Glad to be proven wrong.
B) Thomas Dekker. One of my favorite characters from HEROES. He was in like, maybe four episodes. Stupid HEROES.
C) Cameron the Terminator. This should actually be a subset under (A), but I'm struggling to come up with positive thoughts. I love this Terminator because she's ridiculous and gets to say ridiculous things that only robots can get away with saying. In conclusion, I love robots.
D) Bear McCreary. My man is going to get pigeonholed for only writing music for robots-who-look-human-destroyed-humanity-but-some-are-our-friends-sci-fi shows.
I guess that's it. It's silly that I'm only watching it because of the impact T2 had on me. THAT MOVIE. Whereas the first (and third. and fourth? TBD) movie only really wanted to be an action movie, T2 effortlessly combines real action with real drama and real stakes and real emotional impact. The two Connors are equally strong leads with equally strong character--if you thought Terminator was about Schwarzenegger, you're terribly mistaken.
I mean, I'm even willing to go along with their messed up timeline. It's so integral to what these characters believe, that you CAN change the future, that I don't even want to fight them on it. Guess I don't have the heart to tell them they're wrong. Or, as in the case of Terminator 3, they'll find out the hard way.
Anyway, all this to say that you need to see T2; I need to see :Salvation; I'm not sad Sarah Chronnorcles got canceled. I am still sad about DOLLHOUSE.
This week and next week at work is Employee Appreciation Week (they appreciate us so much a week is 13 days) and we have 10 free rentals instead of five. I'm open to suggestions.
-Steph
Thursday, December 03, 2009
NaNoWriMo: A recap
Happy Thursday! How are you all liking your winter weather now? I mean, because ours just started and I can't deny that it's winter anymore. And wow, was Thursgiving only a week ago?! It was. Amazing.
So, National Novel Writing Month was the thirty days of November. Its purpose: encourage writers to "just do it." The task: write a novel-length project (identified as 50,000 words, more accurately a novella) over the course of the month. Mathematically, writing 1,667 words a day would enable a writer to finish right on schedule.
I'm happy to announce that as of November 29th, I logged 50,061 words. I won! This will prove my results. If you click on the "Nano Stats" tab, you'll be able to see the bar graph I spent half the month staring at. It came pre-loaded with the gray bars, marking the additional 1,667 words for each day, for you to compare your progress against.
I like that my results were more or less steadily rising, with the notable exception of the end of the second week where I stayed two days behind for three sets of days. As you might guess, that's when the reality of the project was hitting, a week where I said, "I did enough writing, I'm gonna go play video games and catch up later." Which I told myself was okay, because I knew I was going to catch up. I knew I was going to finish.
The biggest impact NaNoWriMo had on my month was that suddenly I had to write every day. Duh. You might think that that stipulation would not be as shocking to someone like myself, who you might imagine as someone who writes all the time. But my secret is that I rarely write, unless the mood strikes. But in November, regardless of mood--or availability of ideas--I had to sit down and write. And I couldn't play video games or watch movies, because I always had to write first, so I would make the quota for the day.
Sometimes I would stay up past the day cut-off, just matching the previous day's goal before I went to sleep. Then the next day it would feel like I would only have to do 1,667 more, even though, chronologically, I'd logged a couple hundred words that day already. But that plan wouldn't always work, like when I had to be up in the morning to work. Or if I knew I'd be at work until 10 or 11 at night, that wasn't enough time before midnight to slam out what needed to be slammed out. So I had to be mindful of the time I was spending on every activity, knowing at some point I had to fit in an hour or two of writing.
Not that I didn't spend a lot of time on other activities, though. You may remember the day I sewed an apron, for example. I have a natural aversion to required activity, and even though it was strictly for fun and no one was breathing down my neck, I found myself needing to avoid it and do something unproductive for a while. I think that was okay, though, like I was telling the writing, "I'm in control, and I will take care of you when I need to." Not like pulling an all nighter on some paper that you just end up hating. I think that if I had sat down and made myself write fiction in the way I've previously had to make myself write essays, it would have become an unpleasant experience.
So it was a fascinating experiment in regards to goal-setting (and achieving!), and time management and commitment. And I was very confident about the whole thing, because I didn't necessarily have to worry about the quality of my product--not that that isn't going to matter eventually, but as an exercise in training diligence, the act of writing superseded the need for simultaneous criticism. As in, you write a lot more if you don't spend half your time going back and trying to make every sentence perfect. There's time for editing later.
As for what I learned about writing, the most surprising thing I discovered was how large my story actually was. I've never really written anything substantial before, not something that covers a lot of ground and has a plot and stuff. Mostly what I write when I sit down and write are "one shots;" basically I write scenes and call them stories. But this story, this thing I'm calling "Epoch," is actually a story, following these two characters across years of their lives. But that wasn't even the long part!
Back in the spring, I wrote a scene, a story, about a fight between two people. Intercut between the present tense narrative were past tense flashbacks, each one informing the connection between the two characters, answering the question of why they were fighting, and what the fight meant. Over the summer, I sat on it, edited it a little, and then started seriously thinking about what would happen next.
But before I could think about where those people were going, I had to think about where they came from, or else there would be little emotional impact when you see what their current life is like. Because things used to be great, and then someone made a horrible mistake and now things are awful. Running with my flashback theme, I decided that the following narrative would have chapters that switch off from flashback to current timeline, creating a checkerboard of story lines from the past and the present.
With that in mind, I created an episode from the past to flesh out, as the first "chapter" following the initial story. And then the second chapter would be back in the present, carrying on from the end of the fight. Instead of actually writing this chapter, I thought about it a lot, wanting it to actually be plotted and have a mystery and clues and interlocking pieces, because that's not something I've ever done and it's hard for me to keep track of things like that. But it's the type of storytelling I admire the most--the tightly wound step-by-step plotty type stories. The ones that really come together in the end, and you're equal parts "I knew deep inside that was going to happen" and "I never expected that to happen!!"
So when my sister was all "do NaNoWriMo!!!!" I said, "I have other things I need to be writing." That excuse eventually turned into "I'll just write that thing I have planned, since I should be writing it anyway," with the goal to write 50k new words of the previous idea.
What happened was that plotted story, while surprising easy to slam out 16 hundred words of a day, ended up wrapping up at around 25k words. As in, instead of being the first chapter, it turned out to be half the book. And that's when I realized just how massive this idea was. Simultaneous realizations were: if I had known how much work this would be, I never would have started/if I hadn't just started, I never would have done it. So I'm infinitely indebted to NaNoWriMo for showing me what a real story looks like, even just in the physical page-count sense.
Oh, and the crazy thing, when I finished the "first chapter," and I had to strike out into literally uncharted territory, those first few days into the "second chapter" where fraught with anxiety and the sense of drowning in a deep and endless sea. I didn't know what to write! So I vomited up 1,667 words of pretty much irrelevant nonsense, thinking hard on the next step between times, and in a couple of days I was confident enough in my path to continue on and finish a day early. And I do think that if I didn't have a deadline, a reason to plot quickly, I would have thought and thought and never actually written the next thing until maybe one day I was really bored.
The other thing I learned is that I'm a big-picture story person. The actual act of writing isn't necessarily my favorite thing on earth, I mean. Putting words in order to convey narrative, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to be a novelist. But I want to create story; I want to come up with epic clashes and heartbreaking interpersonal conflicts and and I want this person to say this one thing that changes the world. I want to write, but I don't want to be the one to write it down. I think that's part of why I turned to screenwriting, because the script is not the end product. The script gets turned into something else more than the script, where the story is expressed in performance and lighting and camera movement and musical scoring. In literature, the art is all there on the page, and I don't feel comfortable enough in the crafting of the English language to concentrate on excelling in both content and format.
But yes! I've written a novella amount of words, no small feat! And I will continue to write this story, until it reaches its charted conclusion. And then I will spend a year or two editing it so that I do not offend English-literate people. Then you can read it! If you like vampires and magic-using and girls with swords and stuff. Or if you're a proponent of second chances and an opponent of prejudice, which is what the story is actually shaping up to be about. It's all good.
OKAY. I apologize for talking your ear off about this thing, but this is my formal debriefing on my experience, and it's an experience I'm glad I had. Here's to next November--and Script Frenzy in April! Write 100 pages of screenplay in one month! Yeah. You know I'm there.
Oh, I'll leave you with my playlist for my character's story arc. Maybe you can guess what it's about:
When the Day Met the Night - Panic at the Disco
Princess of the Universe - Queen
Runaway - Linkin Park
Can't Take It - The All-American Rejects
End of the World - Armor for Sleep
The Promised Land - Nobuo Uematsu
Pyramid - Wolfmother
The Show Must Go On - Queen
No Reply - Yoko Kanno
Easier to Run - Linkin Park
What I've Done - Linkin Park
My Suicide Your Homicide - Carter Burwell
Everything Changes - Staind
Leave Out All The Rest - Linkin Park
Savior - Rise Against
This is Not the End - The Bravery
Before It's Too Late - Goo Goo Dolls
The Adventure - Angels and Airwaves
Enjoy!
-Steph
So, National Novel Writing Month was the thirty days of November. Its purpose: encourage writers to "just do it." The task: write a novel-length project (identified as 50,000 words, more accurately a novella) over the course of the month. Mathematically, writing 1,667 words a day would enable a writer to finish right on schedule.
I'm happy to announce that as of November 29th, I logged 50,061 words. I won! This will prove my results. If you click on the "Nano Stats" tab, you'll be able to see the bar graph I spent half the month staring at. It came pre-loaded with the gray bars, marking the additional 1,667 words for each day, for you to compare your progress against.
I like that my results were more or less steadily rising, with the notable exception of the end of the second week where I stayed two days behind for three sets of days. As you might guess, that's when the reality of the project was hitting, a week where I said, "I did enough writing, I'm gonna go play video games and catch up later." Which I told myself was okay, because I knew I was going to catch up. I knew I was going to finish.
The biggest impact NaNoWriMo had on my month was that suddenly I had to write every day. Duh. You might think that that stipulation would not be as shocking to someone like myself, who you might imagine as someone who writes all the time. But my secret is that I rarely write, unless the mood strikes. But in November, regardless of mood--or availability of ideas--I had to sit down and write. And I couldn't play video games or watch movies, because I always had to write first, so I would make the quota for the day.
Sometimes I would stay up past the day cut-off, just matching the previous day's goal before I went to sleep. Then the next day it would feel like I would only have to do 1,667 more, even though, chronologically, I'd logged a couple hundred words that day already. But that plan wouldn't always work, like when I had to be up in the morning to work. Or if I knew I'd be at work until 10 or 11 at night, that wasn't enough time before midnight to slam out what needed to be slammed out. So I had to be mindful of the time I was spending on every activity, knowing at some point I had to fit in an hour or two of writing.
Not that I didn't spend a lot of time on other activities, though. You may remember the day I sewed an apron, for example. I have a natural aversion to required activity, and even though it was strictly for fun and no one was breathing down my neck, I found myself needing to avoid it and do something unproductive for a while. I think that was okay, though, like I was telling the writing, "I'm in control, and I will take care of you when I need to." Not like pulling an all nighter on some paper that you just end up hating. I think that if I had sat down and made myself write fiction in the way I've previously had to make myself write essays, it would have become an unpleasant experience.
So it was a fascinating experiment in regards to goal-setting (and achieving!), and time management and commitment. And I was very confident about the whole thing, because I didn't necessarily have to worry about the quality of my product--not that that isn't going to matter eventually, but as an exercise in training diligence, the act of writing superseded the need for simultaneous criticism. As in, you write a lot more if you don't spend half your time going back and trying to make every sentence perfect. There's time for editing later.
As for what I learned about writing, the most surprising thing I discovered was how large my story actually was. I've never really written anything substantial before, not something that covers a lot of ground and has a plot and stuff. Mostly what I write when I sit down and write are "one shots;" basically I write scenes and call them stories. But this story, this thing I'm calling "Epoch," is actually a story, following these two characters across years of their lives. But that wasn't even the long part!
Back in the spring, I wrote a scene, a story, about a fight between two people. Intercut between the present tense narrative were past tense flashbacks, each one informing the connection between the two characters, answering the question of why they were fighting, and what the fight meant. Over the summer, I sat on it, edited it a little, and then started seriously thinking about what would happen next.
But before I could think about where those people were going, I had to think about where they came from, or else there would be little emotional impact when you see what their current life is like. Because things used to be great, and then someone made a horrible mistake and now things are awful. Running with my flashback theme, I decided that the following narrative would have chapters that switch off from flashback to current timeline, creating a checkerboard of story lines from the past and the present.
With that in mind, I created an episode from the past to flesh out, as the first "chapter" following the initial story. And then the second chapter would be back in the present, carrying on from the end of the fight. Instead of actually writing this chapter, I thought about it a lot, wanting it to actually be plotted and have a mystery and clues and interlocking pieces, because that's not something I've ever done and it's hard for me to keep track of things like that. But it's the type of storytelling I admire the most--the tightly wound step-by-step plotty type stories. The ones that really come together in the end, and you're equal parts "I knew deep inside that was going to happen" and "I never expected that to happen!!"
So when my sister was all "do NaNoWriMo!!!!" I said, "I have other things I need to be writing." That excuse eventually turned into "I'll just write that thing I have planned, since I should be writing it anyway," with the goal to write 50k new words of the previous idea.
What happened was that plotted story, while surprising easy to slam out 16 hundred words of a day, ended up wrapping up at around 25k words. As in, instead of being the first chapter, it turned out to be half the book. And that's when I realized just how massive this idea was. Simultaneous realizations were: if I had known how much work this would be, I never would have started/if I hadn't just started, I never would have done it. So I'm infinitely indebted to NaNoWriMo for showing me what a real story looks like, even just in the physical page-count sense.
Oh, and the crazy thing, when I finished the "first chapter," and I had to strike out into literally uncharted territory, those first few days into the "second chapter" where fraught with anxiety and the sense of drowning in a deep and endless sea. I didn't know what to write! So I vomited up 1,667 words of pretty much irrelevant nonsense, thinking hard on the next step between times, and in a couple of days I was confident enough in my path to continue on and finish a day early. And I do think that if I didn't have a deadline, a reason to plot quickly, I would have thought and thought and never actually written the next thing until maybe one day I was really bored.
The other thing I learned is that I'm a big-picture story person. The actual act of writing isn't necessarily my favorite thing on earth, I mean. Putting words in order to convey narrative, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to be a novelist. But I want to create story; I want to come up with epic clashes and heartbreaking interpersonal conflicts and and I want this person to say this one thing that changes the world. I want to write, but I don't want to be the one to write it down. I think that's part of why I turned to screenwriting, because the script is not the end product. The script gets turned into something else more than the script, where the story is expressed in performance and lighting and camera movement and musical scoring. In literature, the art is all there on the page, and I don't feel comfortable enough in the crafting of the English language to concentrate on excelling in both content and format.
But yes! I've written a novella amount of words, no small feat! And I will continue to write this story, until it reaches its charted conclusion. And then I will spend a year or two editing it so that I do not offend English-literate people. Then you can read it! If you like vampires and magic-using and girls with swords and stuff. Or if you're a proponent of second chances and an opponent of prejudice, which is what the story is actually shaping up to be about. It's all good.
OKAY. I apologize for talking your ear off about this thing, but this is my formal debriefing on my experience, and it's an experience I'm glad I had. Here's to next November--and Script Frenzy in April! Write 100 pages of screenplay in one month! Yeah. You know I'm there.
Oh, I'll leave you with my playlist for my character's story arc. Maybe you can guess what it's about:
When the Day Met the Night - Panic at the Disco
Princess of the Universe - Queen
Runaway - Linkin Park
Can't Take It - The All-American Rejects
End of the World - Armor for Sleep
The Promised Land - Nobuo Uematsu
Pyramid - Wolfmother
The Show Must Go On - Queen
No Reply - Yoko Kanno
Easier to Run - Linkin Park
What I've Done - Linkin Park
My Suicide Your Homicide - Carter Burwell
Everything Changes - Staind
Leave Out All The Rest - Linkin Park
Savior - Rise Against
This is Not the End - The Bravery
Before It's Too Late - Goo Goo Dolls
The Adventure - Angels and Airwaves
Enjoy!
-Steph
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