That’s not the kind of branding I’m talking about.
Since it’s been summer for officially…almost 2 weeks…all I’ve been doing is cleaning my house for Libby’s grad party last weekend, general planning for Ledger next year (EIC WHAT WHAT!) and Internet-ing. Okay, that’s not a verb, but I’m making it a verb for now.
I figure with my free time this summer (whatever goddamn free time I DO have), I’ll increase my overall presence on the web. And some of your may think that it’s a complete waste of time and bandwidth, but I’ve come to find out that it most certainly is not. I’m not saying that I’m going to get a website, because that costs money, but with all the different networking sites where I exist, it adds up.
I’m serious. I kind of love vlogging, and with my recent mega foray into Nerdfighteria for Chris’s class (in which I got a 4.0!) I’ve seen how connective it is. Not that I will stop blogging, but vlogging is a completely different kind of thing – since you get to see people and their gestures, and hear their voice and tone. And YouTube is kind of awesome. I mean, I met Hank Green technically because of it. And I found this video:
Tres Piece never gets old.
Anyway, I love YouTube, and I insist that if you pay more attention to the parts of it that aren’t adorable cat videos (although those are always nice palate cleansers) or Miley Cyrus music videos. YouTube isn’t just a website, it’s a community.
I’ll actually be posting a video eventually defending my proclaimed status as a hipster, because so many people hate them. There are also several other videos on the docket that I’ve brainstormed:
1. Why I love Nerdfighteria
2. Doctor Who
3. 4th of July – why I love America, but would gladly live somewhere else
4. Camera nerd
5. The mega awesome WAStravaganza we have planned at the end of July and beginning of August.
I should probably fill you in on that, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
What else have I done to rebrand myself? Well I’ve updated my Tumblr to match the YouTube.
I do love Tumblr. It’s like Twitter but not limited to words and links. I think I may have said that before, but I need to reproclaim it now. And today I got a Dailybooth, because I’m that narcissistic. Not really, but I figured, why not?
Now I just have to get on that internship thing and getting more photography gigs. I’ll need to set up my own Facebook fan page for that, and maybe get my business license, so I can write my lenses off on my taxes. I do have Lindsey and Chris’s wedding next May. Right, oh shit. I really want that lens.
Speaking of lens – LOOK WHAT I FOUND THIS MORNING. I can’t tell if it’s legit, or if all the things he’s selling are pieces of shit. Seriously, $2100 for a 5D Mk I and two awesome lens, one of which is normally at least $1300 by itself. This would be the ideal package though, right? A shiny new 5D and the wonderful wide angle with the most badass telephoto? Except in this guy’s photo of the equipment, the 70-200mm doesn’t look like the 70-200s I’ve seen. It’s all black. Hmmm. I’ll keep this in mind. I’ll just keep checking craigslist. I don’t wanna get scammed or stabbed or anything.
Internships – yeah, about that.
I’ve been scouring the internet for good ones, and sadly enough I’m too late for any summer ones, which I guess is fine because I’ll be preparing for next year (EIC WHAT WHAT!) and going to a bajillion shows. Have I introduced you to my schedule? These are all the shows I WANT to hit up this summer. And that’s not including what may come up randomly on the schedule. Except I don’t think I’m gonna go to the Capitol Hill Block Party. If I’m not getting in free, I’m out. That’s basically how I feel about most shows lately. Except for WAS.
Now I’ll get to the most badass part of my summer, except for the part when Laura gets home. Well, directly after Laura leaves to go back to New Jersey, I’ll be embarking on an as-yet-undefined-number-of-days trip to San Francisco to see my beloved We Are Scientists. It will be me, Adrian, her friend Ashley that I’ve never met, Renee, Amber, Dolores, and Jenn in San Fran. I’ll drive down to PDX and meet up with Adrian and Ash on August 6th so we can all drive the 10-hour drive to San Fran from there, cause the show is on the 7th. Like I said before, I don’t know how many nights we’ll be staying, but I think that we may end up staying at the Ritz-Carlton and split the price. It was $100 a night! And with 4 people, it would be about the same amount as paying for a hostel, but it would be infinitely cooler because it’s the damn Ritz-Carlton.
So we’ll be in San Francisco, WITH A CAR, so we will have some mobility, even though the public transportation in SF is quite awesome as I remember from high school. Of all the things to do in SF – GO TO AMOEBA, EAT IN CHINATOWN, and of course SEE WAS with all my cool peeps (or as Adrian has started calling us, “slores.”)
I think I’m done, but I have one last thing to add.
The Lost finale was last night. And it wasn’t just the season finale, it was the series finale. Like, the end. It’s done.
Wait, what happens now?
Okay, I’ll admit that I didn’t watch all of this season until literally friday night. I had twelve episodes to get through. Friday night I watched three, saturday morning I watched two, and saturday night I watched six. Sunday morning I watched the last one before the finale. I was on my own personal Lost marathon. And I feel like I should have been having an entire 6-season rewatch for the last 2 months or so, but in those last 2.5 hours, it all came back. I didn’t need to go back and watch 6 of the greatest seasons of television, because along with the characters, I remembered. I won’t try and explain anything, because it’s far too complicated to understand the depth of the story that Lindelof and Cuse put forth all those years ago, but the finale was beautiful. It was exactly how it should have been.
I cried. A lot. I cried the night before when Jin and Sun died together, I cried during the finale when Charlie remembered Claire, and Juliet remembered Sawyer, and when Jack passed the torch to Hurley. And at the end when Jack was dying, for the good ten minutes. No, really, I’m pretty sure Jack stumbled around the Island dying for the last ten minutes of the show, after we all finally found out what the Island actually was.
Some people are probably still unsatisfied with the ending, because there were still questioned unanswered, but did they really think that they could answer everything question without being incredibly campy and ridiculous? Cause some things don’t even matter anymore, so why try and resolve them. The only things that were resolved were part of the whole story to begin with.
[EDIT] I figured that the Island was purgatory all along, but I was wrong. All the symbolism and plot that went into finishing out this great story astounded me. It was so much deeper than just purgatory. The Island was real. They were really there. The last scene exemplified that with the footprints on the beach by the crash site. The Island happened. I read this article earlier, and it explains it pretty well. The crash actually happened, they were actually on the Island, but they died. They all died. This alternate universe that we’ve been seeing all season with Sawyer and Miles as cops and Jack and Juliet married, that was the dream. The dream that they were living in this millisecond between death and actually moving on. Apparently in the Tibetan belief of bardos, once awareness is freed from the body, it creates its own reality as one would experience in a dream. This dream occurs in various phases (bardos) in ways both wonderful and terrifying – that was the dream. The dream that they were trapped in that they had to move on from.
My mom was watching the last bit of the recap with me and was like, “did we always know that Jack’s dad’s name was Christian?”
“Yeah, mom.”
“Good lord, I could have figured it out a long time ago if I’d known that.”
“Yeah, I know mom.”
I’m not a religious person, but I think I’m a person of faith. I believe in things. No specific things, but things. And what I loved so much about Lost is that it made you ask so many questions – not just about the show, but about yourself. I mean, in a time where shitty shows like The Bachelor and Private Practice – ones that involve no thought whatsoever, shallow and useless, we had Lost. They had these series of notes from viewers in between the recap last night, and one very aptly said, “who says TV fries your brain?”
Here are a couple more that especially touched me.
“Our minds may tell us that it’s over, but our hearts will forever remain on the Island.”
“The world is full of smoke monsters. There is a smoke monster in all of us.”
“I lost 6 years to you, and I don’t want them back.”
“Why does this have to end?”
“I’ll miss you, Freckles.”
“Thanks some much for an amazing six years.”
“To all the Losties out there, may the love of this show unite us forever. Goodbye, LOST. Thanks for the memories.”
“You were ridiculously awesome at keeping me addicted to confusion.”
“May as well sell the TV! Nothing can compare. Thanks for 6 amazing seasons.”
I’m just sad I didn’t get to watch the finale with anyone else. I literally got home last night at 12:30 and had to eat dinner and help my mom with something for work before I watched the 2.5 hour finale. Well, with fast-forwarding through the commercials. But I didn’t get to bed until 3:30. So I got less than 5 hours of sleep. Or less. Depending on how long it actually took me to get to sleep. I woke up with a sore throat, headache and puffy eyes. Good job, Abby. Now I’m gonna be sick for Sasquatch. Time to take way too much Vitamin C. Not that Lost got me sick, it just got me hella tired for today. I’m going to bed at midnight. And that’s that.
But I know some people are probably reading this thinking that I’m ridiculous. I am. But am I ashamed for loving Lost? No. It’s a show that made you think. And sure, it’s completely fictional, but it’s just like when you finish reading a great novel, or a great series of novels. I guarantee that if you read all 7 of the Harry Potter novels, you cried at the end. Unless you’re, like, heartless or something. And I cried at the end of Lost not because everyone died, but because it was over. I mean, you can’t really write a show to take its place, because nothing will live up to it. It’s not like a sitcom or medical melodrama, or a cop show or reality show. Serial dramas don’t follow a formula, and that’s what I loved about Lost. I literally had no idea what was going on half the time, let a lone what was going to happen next. It was a show that you had to actively watch. Like reading a book, but with a wonderful score and really attractive male leads.
And it’s different when serials end, because when series end, we know that in the universe within the series, life still goes on. It’s just that the story is no longer being told in episodes. When serials are over, they’re over. The story is over. It’s really the end. And in Lost’s case, it was all of their end.
When I read that article I linked to earlier, one point that she made hit me.
“If you live together, you won’t die alone.”
I can’t explain why it poked at my brain so much, but it was kind of wonderful. The Oceanic 815 passengers had to find each other so that they could leave together. I swear to God Jacob and Christian explained the entire reason they were there.
In the last few moments of the finale, I had the perfect sense of deja vu. There Jack was, dying in the middle of the bamboo reeds, and Vincent comes to sit with him so he won’t die a lone. And then the camera comes in on Jack’s eye closing. The series started with Jack’s eye opening and Vincent barking after the plane crash.
God this show was fucking amazing.
Goodnight, Jack. Goodbye, Lost. It was nice knowing you.
❤ Abby
P.S. Another excerpt from Jezebel's article. I want to live my life like this. “Because a part of the shared human experience—which is basically what the entire show boiled down to—is that we want to leave our mark, so that people know that we’d been here. (I mean, that was the point of all the different shit, like the statue, and hieroglyphs and the empty Dharma barracks. They were all just footprints of the people who had been on the Island before.) And a large part of that, of leaving a footprint, or a mark, is to establish a basic need: To know that we matter.”
This post is a day too late, but it was super late when I was getting to bed. But then again, it’s almost 2 am right now. But who needs sleep? NOT ME! Hell, it’s layout weekend. I bet Sarah, Alexis and Lana aren’t sleeping right now. So I don’t need to either!
Plus, I went and saw Iron Man 2 tonight, and it was AWESOME.
But that’s not the point of this post!
Last night was w00tstock. Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage, Paul and Storm, MC Frontalot, Loading Ready Run, Stepto, Molly Lewis, and…wait, what’s this? HANK GREEN!
Yes, it is a Hank Green!
But I’ll get to that later.
I’ve never been in a bigger gathering of awesome nerds in my life. It was funny, because it was a COMPLETELY different crowd than I’ve ever been in at any venues in Seattle. Normally I’m surrounded by 18-year-old fangirls and hipsters. But then again, nerds don’t usually leave their house unless they have to. And this was one of those times.
I sat down next to this girl and her dad. I didn’t say anything but “hi” right off the bat, but I soon learned that I’d been seated next to another legitimate nerdfighter. When Wil Wheaton came out on stage and announced all the people, the girl to my right cheered the loudest at Hank’s name. Another nerdfighter? Awesome! I thought to myself. Eventually I found out that her name was Katelyn, and she was from Monroe. She complimented my “I Are Scientists” tee shirt, as did several other people throughout the night, which felt pretty cool. But Katelyn told me that Hank was the main reason that she drove down from Monroe that night. And we both kind of sang along to Anglerfish, which was so jokes. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone else there, because no one responded to my posts at the Ning, but it was all fine in the end.
But I won’t jump ahead.
Wil Wheaton is so cool. Like, so cool. Throughout the night, we had ceiling cat staring at us from the projector desktop.
This ceiling cat. He was on the desktop of the laptop controlling the videos and introductions for each act. At one point the screen saver came on and everyone started laughing.
Wil said several times throughout the night when the audience laughed at EXTRA obscure nerdy references, “I love you guys.” And he made several Doctor Who references, my favorite being how he called the theater he first saw Rocky Horror in “Tardis-like.”
“It seemed bigger on the inside.” Hehe.
Speaking of that, Wil told us a story about the first time he saw Rocky, and how he lost his Rocky virginity. And Paul and Storm provided the soundtrack for that story. It was adorable.
Molly Lewis also played last night, 4 songs I believe, the last one being “Conjunction Junction” with Jason Finn from the Presidents of the United States of America. I got lots of video of her, but I haven’t uploaded it to Youtube yet. Once I do, I’ll add it here. It was funny, because when I heard about who was going to be at w00tstock, I was like, “hey, Molly Lewis opened for Chris Hardwick last month!” She was pretty cool, with her Wikipedia breakup song and another one about how she wants to have Stephen Fry’s babies.
So I’m not going to explain the entire show, because that would be really long, because it was a good 3.5 hours of awesome geeky nerdiness. The intermission came and I went to see what kinda merch I could get. I ended up getting a w00tstock tee shirt, which came with a poster. The girl at the merch table was one of the people who complimented me on my WAS shirt.
I can’t remember if Stepto was before or after the intermission, but Stephen Toulouse, the director of Xbox Live, came out and gave a “sermon,” if you will, about all the douchebags on Xbox live. It was the story of the aptly named “p00nhun+er” and his asshole gaming ways and vulgar video feed. I don’t have an Xbox, but I’m guessing that it’s a common problem. Two of the members of Loading Ready Runs stood next to Stepto in brown hooded robes, and there was a giant ancient-looking book that he read from.
“Be thou not a dick,” he said. Guaranteed that bit got some of the biggest laughs. Because even if you don’t play Xbox live, you understand the internet assholes. It’s the whole freaking internet, and there are bound to be dickbags.
Now onto the best – well, most anticipated – part of the night. Wil, I think Wil introduced him, got up on stage and mentioned something about Youtube and DFTBA records, and Katelyn and I cheered madly.
I’m pretty sure at that point in the night, he did. I doubt that the most people were there to see Hank, but the people who were there to see him were quite possibly the loudest. I only got video of “Quarks,” because I saw my LOW BATTERY signal, and didn’t want it to die if I was going to take a picture with Hank afterwards. Idiotically enough, I forgot to get a picture with Hank at the end, but what I got was so much better. After my marvelous filming, Hank played “A Song About An Anglerfish” and “What Would Captain Picard Do?” And Hank mentioned how weird it was to be playing the latter song in a room with Wil Wheaton (most famously known as Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG, if you don’t know). It was so cool sitting there with Katelyn singing along to Anglerfish and being completely enthralled by one of my favorite Youtubers. I couldn’t stop smiling. In fact, I couldn’t really stop smiling the whole night, except for the sudden “ouch” faces I made when Adam Savage showed us extra special footage of an upcoming episode of Mythbusters. I gotta tell you, it’s gonna be SO GOOD.
In fact, Adam did bust the myth that Jamie isn’t intentionally funny. He told us about this interview with Billy Bob Thornton, who said something like sleeping with Angelina Jolie is like fucking a couch. And Jamie said, according to Adam, “If my couch looked like Angelina Jolie, I’d fuck it.”
And just picture those words coming out of THIS FACE.
Jamie doesn’t try to be funny. HE JUST IS.
After Adam’s hilarious stories about latex jumpsuits, drunken treadmills and Jamie’s junk, there was one final song from Paul and Storm, about Pirates. What made it so great was that when the audience was cued, we’d answer with a resounding “ARRRRHHH.” But say they asked us a question like, “what was your favorite science fiction film?” “STARRR WARRRRS.”
“Who was your favorite character?”
“ARRRTOOODEETOOO.”
“Who was your least favorite character?”
“JAARRRR JARRRR!”
Apparently most of the crowd was very hateful toward Jar Jar Binks.
And the song went on like that for about ten minutes.
“Who’s your favorite host of the Tonight Show?”
“CAAARRRRSON!”
And this was perfect. Wil Wheaton answered that question with, “Conan O’Brien!”
It made me smile. Like I wasn’t already smiling, right?
So at the end of the show, I went and got my tee shirt, went to pee chatted with Katelyn for a bit, thinking that the line was to have everyone – including Hank – sign something. After I got at the end of the line, cause I wasn’t about to cut in front of people, I saw that Katelyn had already gone to the lobby floor and was talking with Hank. I ran around the long line, too impatient to stand in line for that long, even if it was Adam Savage and Wil Wheaton. But at that point it wasn’t even them in the lobby signing things. It was Paul and Storm.
I walked over to Hank and Katherine, who were talking with Molly Lewis at the time, and another girl walked up next to be and had him sign something. I said hello, introduced myself, and right then and there Hank gave me a hug! Like, I didn’t even say anything but my name, and I was in Hank’s hug bucket! I must say, he’s way tall in person. You don’t really get to see on Youtube, because he and John are always sitting down, and they’re in a tiny video screen. I told Hank how excited I was to be there, and that I wasn’t going to go, until I heard that he was going to be a part of w00tstock. Totally true. And then in seeing his large black Sharpie, it hit me!
“Could you sign my bag? I’m gonna try and turn it into a thing, where I get really cool people to sign it!”
“Who do you have so far?”
“Chris Hardwick.”
“Is that a cat, with a gun?”
“Yes, it’s a gun-wielding cougar.” I didn’t bother trying to explain it, because no one but us Sci-Cavers would really get it. Actually Markas pointed that out to me today.
“That bag is so indie.”
“Yeah, but unless you get the reference!”
“No one will get the reference. That’s why it’s so indie.”
“But that’s not a bad thing. I didn’t spend $40 on it at Urban Outfitters!”
“That makes it even more indie!”
Anyway, so I had Hank sign my bag (he has beautiful handwriting, btw) and I thanked him profusely for coming to Seattle on this glorious night of geek and awesome. As I walked back to my car, I literally wanted to skip. Seriously. But it was about 11:30 on a friday night on 2nd street, and I could have easily been accosted if I started skipping. But once I did get to my car at the garage 4 blocks over, I did squee quite a bit sitting in the driver’s seat. And I did all the way home. I texted Adrian while I was driving, which is a terrible idea, but I had to tell someone, and no one else in my contact list would understand my excitement. And it was damn exciting, damnit!
ADDENDUM: OH MY GOD WHEN I POSTED THIS THE FIRST TIME I FORGOT ABOUT DOCTOR WHO. D: So it’s down at the bottom now.
I figure since I can’t really get the reading done for my next class done, I’ll fill everyone in about my abso-freaking-lutely busy week.
No seriously. It’s the busiest my weekend has ever been, and I didn’t even do everything I could do. I still have an ass-ton of homework due Wednesday. So I’ll start from last Wednesday. Wait, no Thursday.
No, Friday. Thursday wasn’t all that exciting. We started layout early, which was nice, but it didn’t really save us any time, because we still didn’t get done yesterday until 10. But anyway, FRIDAY. Friday I had the following tasks: pack for Saturday, purchase two maple bacon doughnuts, drive to school, lay out pages, edit photos, drive to Seattle, find parking, meet Renee, give her a maple bacon doughnut, and see Spoon.
Mkay. Lemme tell you something. I thought I found amazing parking that night. It said $6, right? I paid on the way in, I thought I was done. Not quite. It turns out the next morning I had to pay an extra $24 for the night. $30 for parking. Balls. But now that I think about it, I don’t even care. It was totally worth the next two days. Because while they were ridiculously busy and kinda stressful and I got like 8 hours of sleep over the course of those 2 days, they were terrific. Like, really really really terrific. So after naively parked at the Warwick hotel next to the cute old building Renee was staying in, I walked over to the Moore to get my ticket and photo pass. I got there before Renee, but when she did get there we gorged on doughnut. It was awesome. But when I went to get my photo pass, I walked up to the will-call, gave them my name and said that I was supposed to be on the guest list for a ticket and photo pass. She took out an envelope and pulled out 3 stickers. One of which was my photo pass, but I had no idea what the other two were for.
Well,
Needless to say, I squee’d. I was quite confused, like “why do I get these? Why am I here? I’m not this cool. Oh my god life questions!” But I handed one to Renee and it made us even more excited to see Spoon. Like seriously. We got after show passes. How? But then I realized that I didn’t have my ticket, so I went back over to ask if I had a ticket. Thank god I did, so then I was all set. I love the Moore Theater. They don’t check your bags and let you bring water bottles in. That’s the one thing about the Showbox that drives me crazy. You have to pay $1.50 for a water bottle you could have just brought yourself. BUT, when we got inside the theater, no one got there for a good half an hour. Well, it was still pretty empty until like halfway through Deerhunter. Poor Micachu and the Shapes. That’s one thing I hate and love about seated theaters. You don’t have to get there first to get a spot, because you have an assigned spot. But it leaves the theater pretty empty for openers. It’s a shame that not everyone got to see all of Deerhunter’s performance, because it was awesome. Casual, and epic, and awesome. Bradford broke into this long, almost poetic story about being 27 in Seattle at the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. And how when he was 12 and it happened, he would say, “I’ll never be 27!” And other things. But that was pretty cool. Then this girl jumped up on stage and started beating Bradford’s guitar with maracas, shaking around the floor like a crazy person and dancing with all the band members. It was adorable. Too bad it was after the 3rd song, it would have made an awesome photo. But I was going to be bad this time. I adhered to the rules. Um…what else? Oh, Bradford kept saying, “this is fucking ridiculous, like what are we doing here?” (Hmmm, I know how he feels.)
After Deerhunter was done, the seat next to Renee’s was still vacant. I could have EASILY sat down right there, but I found my seat. All us photogs (the same ones I always see) piled up to the front to shoot Spoon. Again, we swiftly moved across the non photo pit, and oddly enough, as I was shooting, my phone vibrated telling me that I had an email. One of the other photographers, right across the stage, started following me on Twitter. ??? I dunno, it was funny.
And then they came onstage, and people went apeshit. Which is fitting, because, you know – it’s SPOON. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I still have to write my review for Popwreckoning, and it’ll get really tedious coming up with more adjectives to describe how awesome it was. I’ll just mention that everyone – including all the photographers – started dancing during “The Underdog” like silly fangirls at a Jonas Brothers concert. Okay, maybe I’ll use that description in my feature. It was fun to participate in the dance party. You can’t not dance to that song anyway. It’s so freaking danceable.
ABBY, STAY FOCUSED!
I think it was about halfway through Spoon’s set when Bradford came out to play guitar – OH WAIT! Michael Lerner (aka Telekinesis) played snare on a bunch of songs, which was a nice ‘lil local flavor. Back to Bradford, he came out and shimmied across the stage, dancing with Rob like goofballs, and I think it was during “Who Makes Your Money” when he snuck up behind Britt and thrust the guitar neck between his legs. Britt didn’t notice it for a bit, but then he stared down at his crotch and shoved Bradford back and they stumbled and giggled and it was awesome. And I don’t even know when this was either, but Britt looked down into the audience, and this was after I went back to my seat and I couldn’t see what was going on. He took his guitar off and jumped off stage to go into the crowd. Like, right into the crowd. Apparently some old dude was literally sleeping. Out like a light, and Britt went to go wake him up. Again – awesome.
Needless to say – it was all awesome. Afterwards, I made my way back up to the front of the stage to find Renee when she grabbed the set list, because she always gets the set lists. And we went out to the lobby to wait for whatever came next. As soon as the security people started shooing everyone away, I wasn’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do with our after show passes. Good god even when I say it now it sounds so flipping cool. What the hell? So it was us and a few other people who looked legitimately worthy of going backstage into Spoon’s FUCKING DRESSING ROOM. We were led behind the stage, and I turned around the glanced into the empty theater and I almost pissed myself. We climbed a steep set of stairs past Deerhunter’s tiny-ass dressing room where Jim Eno was talking with Micachu and the Shapes, and we heard a bustle upstairs. Spoon’s dressing room was small, but not obscenely small like Deerhunter’s. But still, we were in their dressing room. Renee wasn’t quite as all, “d’uh…I’M NOT WORTHY” as I was, because she’s met them like a gazillion times before. Literally, she’s following their tour right now. And she’s going to make cupcakes for Rob’s birthday this week. At least that’s what she told him. So we stood around for a bit looking like fools who for some reason got after show passes. I still was like, “I’M NOT WORTHY, I’M NOT WORTHY…WTF.” But eventually all the members of Spoon made it our way and we – and I mean Renee mostly – talked to them for a short bit before asking them to sign her set list and my ticket stub. Oh, that’s right here.
So completely running on adrenaline, endorphins and bacon doughnuts, we walked around the corner to Renee’s cute ‘lil rented apartment. $45 a night for cozy dorm-like room? WIN! I don’t know how the hell she finds these places. But I managed to upload and edit my photos that night, because I didn’t feel like sleeping. I couldn’t post them to Flickr until the next day when I found a Tully’s because the internet at the apartment was uber slow. And I didn’t notice this until I uploaded my pictures to Flickr, but I shot most of Spoon’s set in 400 ISO. What the hell? I was so confused how it got to 400 ISO. I shot Deerhunter and Micachu and the Shapes in 1600 ISO, which is what I normally do, but miraculously the pictures on 400 ISO turned out awesome. No wonder they had no noise. I’ll have to shoot shows at the Moore more often. Brilliant lighting = brilliant photos, not to mention much easier. No need to shoot in black and white to relieve the super-saturated red light. Nope, theater lighting is pretty.
Before I move onto Saturday, I’ll post some of my favorite pics from the show. I’m so happy with this set!
Now I can the difference in noise on the Spoon and Deerhunter pics. Britt and Rob are SO CLEAR.
Friday, done.
Saturday, begin.
Saturday morning came way too early. I woke up at about 6, because I couldn’t fall back asleep. So about 4.5 hours is all I had, which actually was probably better than getting 6 hours. I always seem to be really really sleepy on 6 hours of sleep. By that time I’d reached the deep REM cycle. 4.5 hours it’s still nap-mode. But anyway, I woke up and got ready, didn’t take a shower because I was lazy. Just put my hair in a ponytail. I didn’t really know how many blocks I’d have to walk. Turns out I didn’t walk. It was 8 blocks away technically, but you couldn’t walk there without passing through a drug-dealer-infested street. I learned that when I was driving and a bunch of crackheads tried to flag me down in my car. IN MY CAR THEY WERE TRYING TO DEAL. But I missed the turn and ended up going like 5 miles out of my way down to the industrial area, and I got to the Bell Harbor Conference Center with like 2 minutes to spare when I left with 40 MINUTES TO SPARE. Boy do I suck with directions. Really.
I got to the conference center at the exact same time Niki did, and I was still pretty high from endorphins from the night before. Who needs sleep? Not me! We took the elevator up the third floor where everyone else was waiting, and they had free food. FREE BREAKFAST. I was so happy, because when I woke up it was too obscenely early to eat breakfast. 8 am is perfect for breakfast. So we ate our breakfast and I told everyone about my amazing night before, and tried not to sound like I was gloating. If I sounded like I was gloating you guys, tell me. I’m sorry. I like sharing my excitement. And I took my ticket stub out and they all – well some of them – ogled at it. And I squee’d again.
We went to a few sessions, learned a few lessons, and met with some of the Daily staff. Only about half of them came and introduced themselves, but the ones we did meet – Andrew, Lexie, and Nicole – were pretty cool. I can’t even fathom having just one job to do on the paper, which is what they do all the time because it’s daily and they have over 100 people on staff. ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE. We have TWELVE. That was my favorite part of the conference, meeting with them – because they are people that we can legitimately collaborate with, even though I’m starting to hate that word.
Here are some shots of us, sans me, since I was taking the pictures.
We got free lunch too, which was nice. After the conference, I tried to convince any of my fellow Ledgerites to join me at an awesome comedy show with Chris Hardwick, but no one obliged. I actually contemplating not going because I had so much homework due for Wednesday (which I still have not done yet), but then I thought that I’d regret not going. I’ve done that too much this year, and since I’m going to get paid more this quarter, and I might not even go to New York in July, I didn’t feel bad about spending more money on tickets and parking. I found an $8 parking garage a couple blocks away from the Showbox, which was great because it was half the price that I normally pay for parking. Definitely not parking right next to the Showbox anymore. Just let me tell you, I know my way around the Market now. It took me forever to find a place with free wi-fi for me to upload my Spoon pictures. I went into Starbucks naively thinking that I’d get wi-fi since we get it at school, but you needed AT&T. So I left and searched “free wi-fi pike place seattle” on my phone, and they gave me 3 locations. Tullys was about 5 blocks away, so I went to Tullys and uploaded my pictures, bought a chai and waited a ridiculously long time to use the bathroom. I swear this girl spent like 15 minutes in the Tullys bathroom. It pissed me off.
Oh well, because the rest of the night was totally worth waiting to pee and paying $30 for parking the night before and not doing my homework. I just wish I could have shared the experience with someone else. GAH I need to find people to hang out with who live in Seattle. It would surely make my spontaneous trips less lonely.
I stood in line for about a half an hour before they opened the doors, and alas, there were still tickets available! The Showbox set up chairs. CHAIRS. There are never chairs at the Showbox. It was weird. I sat right up front, because no one else did, but I was just a bit off to the left side, near the bathroom and the speakers. I think they started the show around 8-ish. Possibly before that. I dunno. Molly Lewis started the show with funny ukulele songs about breaking up with Wikipedia and a cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” Apparently she might be playing at next month’s “w00tstock 2.0.” Yes. Three hours of nerd and music, featuring WIL FREAKING WHEATON and ADAM FRAKKING SAVAGE. To borrow from Trenton’s vocabulary – ADAM’S A SAVAGE. Okay, nerd tangent over.
Wait, no, nerd tangent NOT over. It’s FAR from over.
After Molly Lewis came Mike Phirman who told some jokes and played some songs. The mic kept cutting out, which led to some funny jokes – both from Mike and from Chris. My favorite joke was about how Mike wants marijuana legalized merely because he has an idea for a business venture. A pot cookie company called Chips A-huh. It’s better when you hear it, but it was funny. I didn’t take any pictures because my crappy camera was dying, but this guy did. Apparently he was part of the Street Team that Chris put together from his Nerdist website.
Here’s some of my favorites from his Flickr page.
So I have even more of a total nerdy fangirl crush on Chris now. It’s ridiculous. He came out with a tiny polo on, and told nerdy jokes about the south, G4, Cracker Barrels, Motorhead, Tacoma, his nerdist street team and tentacle porn. No seriously. Right when Chris got on stage a couple of his street teamers held up signs that said “Hard for Hardwick,” and “You’re my Palate Cleanser.” D’aww. And then a guy who was sitting behind me threw a rolled up poster to Chris on stage. Curious as to what it was, Chris opened it up and it was hentai tentacle porn. And he proceeded on a tangent about how ridiculous hentai is.
This is the only video I found on Youtube from it. They were kinda prohibidado about filming, but this guy didn’t care.
Some girl sitting at the bar kept shouting like “my kids love you on Barnyard!” Chris asked her where she was from, and she said Tacoma and people laughed. It turned into a theme. Apparently Seattleites hate Tacoma. I gotta admit, if I had Seattle all the time, I’d hate Tacoma too. One girl in the front had an awesome purse made from the face of Animal from the Muppets. At some point Chris was like, “oh my god is that your purse? That’s awesome! Can I see that?” And she walked up to the stage and showed it to him, and he proceeded to make noises like Animal, and the girl walked up a little closer and told him that his zipper was down. This was halfway through the show, and his fly was down the entire time. So hilarious.
And toward the end of the show, he brought Mike back on stage to sing some songs – INCLUDING THE PI SONG. At this point there were 3 mics on the floor after they died. The awesomeness of the show KILLED THE MICS. So I think this was the second song they played, but during their “Anything” song, where it’s all about determination, how you can do anything, fly like a bird, unless you’re a girl – Chris decided that he’d croon to the audience. Since it’s a power ballad, he got all up in people’s faces and sang right to them while Mike played guitar onstage and kept singing. Chris started on the right side of the stage, being all ridiculous and serious, and as he got closer to the left side of the stage, he got more and more intense, grabbing people and almost seducing them, right? So he walked up to the guy sitting two seats down from me, and he grabbed his head and shook it around while belting out this song about perseverance.
Then he got to me. Seriously. I kinda got molested by Chris Hardwick. Seriously. He got right up in my face and sang right to me, grabbed my face and started to crawl on me, grabbed my ponytail and I got a faceful of Chris’s chest. I have to say that I awestruck with the WTF-ness of it all, but I kind of enjoyed it. Okay, I was really excited when he grabbed my face. I mean, I see him on TV every week. And he was like, crawling on me.
Come on, stop looking at me like that.
So after the last song, Chris announced that he’d be in the lobby signing stuff and taking pictures, because “apparently people like that.” I stood line in front of these two high school guys, who were clearly nerds themselves. Except in all of this, I didn’t have anything for him to sign. I had $20 bills and the Ledger business cards. But I had my purse. My gun-wielding cougar purse.
I swear, it’s the only thing I had. But maybe I could turn it into a “thing,” where I get all the famous people I meet to sign it, so it’s not just Chris Hardwick and then WAS. I almost felt kinda bad for having the first signature on my bag to not be from WAS, but then I saw what he drew, it made me happy.
And the first thing I thought of to talk about was Spoon, because he mentioned earlier in his set referencing a hypothetical heckler, “hey if we leave now, we can make the last ten minutes of Spoon!”
So I said, “I was strategic and saw Spoon last night so I could see you tonight!”
“Ah, great! I haven’t seen them in a long time, how was it?”
“Awesome. And Britt totally jumped into the crowd to wake up an old guy who was sleeping.”
And Chris looked up from my bag for a second and said, “what the hell, who sleeps during a Spoon concert?!”
“I know, it was ridiculous.” And I said some sort of thank you and asked for a photo, and the guy standing behind me took it with the crappy coolpix.
“It’s really bright.”
“That’s what Photoshop is for.” And Chris laughed. And I squee’d and said thank you again and walked away.
Eeek yay.
I just have to say that there weren’t enough Doctor Who fans in the audience, because when Chris made a DW reference, “Doctor, are we going to take a trip in the TARDIS?” in a British accent, and like four people shouted. I screamed so loud. Seattle needs more Who fans. We really do.
LAST WEEKEND was the Doctor Who series premiere. I have to say that I love Matt Smith. I felt really bad for a bit that I liked him because I felt like I was cheating on Ten, but now I don’t feel as bad. Matt did such a good job. Like a really good job. I so excited for this season. I was house-sitting for Andrea’s old neighbor and their horrific dog, and I downloaded the episode while I was doing nothing surrounded by an incredibly windy day. Heck, I was getting paid $20 a day to do my homework and make sure the dog doesn’t go too apeshit. I’m all for that. So what else better to do than watch Vlogbrothers videos and download Doctor Who? Ahhh, spring break.
I mean, look at Matt. He’s adorable.
I love him. And I love Karen. And I love what Moffat has done so far. I still feel a little nostalgic about the old Tardis and sonic screwdriver, but it’s still early, and I’ll probably end up loving both of them. We need more Doctor Who love, seriously. At least Nerdfighteria is all for the Doctor Who love.
I think I’m done now. Holy hell that was a long, photo-loaded post. But I told you it was a busy weekend. Was I right?
I completely forgot Spring Break. It’s almost April. Like, tomorrow is April. I’m getting kind of annoyed that the Florence and the Machine people haven’t emailed me back about a press pass, and at least Spoon’s people told me to remind them on APRIL 5TH, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE SHOW. I don’t see why they wait so long. It just makes us more nervous.
Today was a nervous day.
I won’t say why just yet, but let’s just say the nervous ended well.
Right, spring quarter started yesterday. About that…
I LOVE (two of) MY CLASSES! The other one will hopefully be a piece of cake, but so far I know that I’ll definitely need coffee before each Earth History class. It was the only Natural World credit that fit into my schedule without a lab and an extra lab fee. Plus, it’s only a 200-level course, so it won’t be too bad. But my other classes are the ones I’m excited about – Feature Writing with Demaske and Advertising and Consumer Culture with Coon. And it’s nice that they bookend the day. Lots of creative thinking in the morning – but not too early morning – then my boring after-lunch class, then the critical thinking theory class. It’s perfectly set up for my brain. We already talked about our final assignment in my feature writing class yesterday, which sounds quite awesome actually. We have to study a subculture over a long period of time and do an in-depth, 8-10 PAGE ARTICLE about it. That’s a lot of words for feature stories. But I’ve already thought about what subcultures I could do. There’s not a lot of subcultures in Gig Harbor that would make for an interesting story. There are lots of subcultures, but they are boring. In terms of Gig Harbor, I’m pretty sure all I could choose from would be pot smokers, old people, crafty people, snooty people, and high school kids. Wup-de-freakin-do. And the subcultures I’d really like to study would either a.) be in Seattle, so I’d drive way more than I’m willing to, or b.) not let me, because I’m not 21. So I’m considering doing the subculture of straight edge. There would be no danger involved, so that’s good, and it would only be in Tacoma. But I’d have to endure local hardcore music at The Viaduct. Not sure how keen I am on that, but I think it might be an interesting experiment in my will power. And I’m doing it for a grade, so that’s kinda worth it. Once I sift through all the subcultures that I don’t consider myself a part of, I might think of a less excruciating one to do. If you have any ideas, I will accept anything right now.
What else?
Nerdfighters. I had such a boring spring break that over the last 2 weeks I’ve watched approximately 250 Vlogbrothers videos. I started out with random ones from the last two months, but after feeling like a lame Nerdfighter, I started from the beginning. I’m up to November 13 of 2007. If you have absolutely no idea what the hell I’m talking about, I’ll quickly explain. In 2007, John and Hank Green, two nerdy brothers decided to embark on a year-long project where they would post alternating video blogs every weekday for a year, called Brotherhood 2.0. Their viewers are called Nerdfighters. But the Nerdfighters don’t just watch, they participate in Brotherhood 2.0, posting video responses, donating money to the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck, that Hank and John then discusses with either other and the Nerdfighters on what to do with it. I’ll stop explaining now. Well John is an author of young adult fiction and Hank runs Ecogeek.org and writes nerdy songs about nerdy things. Since I started watching their videos quite religiously, I feel kind of a part of it. These are a couple of my favorite vlogbrothers videos.
And of course there’s Accio Deathly Hallows.
The other day after watching one video where John went through his old notebook, I delved into my old journals and started my own project – to journal more. I think that may have been why I avoided blogging for the last eleven days. But I went into my old journals and did a vlog reading of an entry from when I was 11 years old and in put this fire inside me that I’d journal more. Blogging is one thing, but journaling is just for yourself. Truly for yourself without an audience. Not that I have a significant audience here, but my journal is private. Also the fact that Disney put out their own sucky remake of Harriet the Spy called “Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars.” See, that’s my point. Harriet wrote in a notebook, for no one else but her to see. Blogs aren’t truly private. Sure the names are the same and Harriet wants to be a writer, but it takes out the central conflict devise from the original novel. Harriet’s classmates read her notebook and it ruined her. Temporarily, but Disney has taken it and morphed it into something that is surely not made of awesome. It is made of suck.
Basically, Nickelodeon pwns Disney.
So that made me upset, which partially led to my reinsertion into my journals and the vlog that followed.
I think possibly my favorite part of the early videos of Hank and John is John’s process in writing his third novel, Paper Towns, which I haven’t read yet, but I’m reading his first book now, Looking For Alaska. It’s funny now, as I’m about 35 pages in (I just started reading it this morning after my Editor-in-chief interview), but when I read it I hear it in my head in John’s voice. It’s kind of eerie, but it gives another dimension to the book. I don’t think I’ve ever really heard the voice of an author of a book that I like. Except for J.K. Rowling, but when I read Harry Potter I just hear it in my head with a British accent. And I hear Harry’s voice and Ron’s voice and Hermione’s voice whenever they speak. It’s different. I’ve never heard Megan McCafferty’s voice, and I got almost as invested in the Jessica Darling books as I did with Harry Potter. I think I’ve heard Chip Kidd speak in a video he posted on his website from Comic-con, but this was after I read The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners. I wish John Green were coming to Seattle on his book tour for Will Grayson, Will Grayson, his new book, co-written with David Levithan, who also co-wrote Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. I’ve been so void of books that I actually read for pleasure these last two years that I kind of forgot what it was like to like books. And I’m glad that I’m reading Alaska now.
Watching these Brotherhood 2.0 videos has made me realize lots of things. I won’t go into detail about all of them, but I’ll just let you – I’m a Nerdfighter.
Oh, my title refers to my favorite Tokyo Police Club song, as well as all this talk of books.
Been listening to the new MGMT song, and I’m not sure if I like it or not. Apparently, MGMT thinks so too.
It’s pretty funny though, right? I feel like Ben and Andrew were totally high when they wrote this. And perhaps when they recorded it too.
But that was just a funny lil’ lead-in. That’s now why I’m writing this post tonight.
WINTER QUARTER=PWND.
Yes, my fair readers (if I can call you fair), winter quarter is officially over, and now I have a good ten-day break until spring quarter starts. Although, I don’t really get ten days to rest. I have ten days to finish a couple reviews for Popwreckoning, work out like mad, clean my fish tank, order my books for spring quarter, and all the while trying not to spend any money. Wait…damnit books! Okay, I won’t spend money on ANYTHING else other than books. I’m not broke. I’m not, but I want to have enough money so that my trip to NYC for Laura’s birthday in July won’t make me broke. And I want to be able to sell my Sasquatch ticket to make back $170 (+$16 for Ticketmaster fees). No more Starbucks, no more tasty soup or salads from Coco Bobs, and not Subway. I’m brown-bagging it this quarter. The only thing I will spend money on will be gas. And Seattle parking when I go to shows. But this will take effect after I buy my ticket to see Chris Hardwick at the Showbox on April 9. OH RIGHT! I should tell you!
I was on Twitter the other day (like any other day), and I was debating whether or not to drive to Seattle two days in a row to see Spoon on friday and Chris Hardwick on saturday. All the while I was tagging my tweets with @Nerdist and @Spoontheband, which if you know Twitter, people can click to see all their @replies. So this was a real conundrum. I’ve been watching loads of Web Soup lately, because it just started back up again, and I’ve listened to 3 out of the 6 Nerdist podcasts (the Joel McHale one’s pretty good), and Nerdist is one of my favorite blogs. Apparently Chris (Hardwick) has just discovered how awesome Doctor Who is. I love it. Maybe if and when I meet him we’ll talk about DW. That’d be awesomely nerdy. BUT! After I stopped discussing my Seattle conundrum, my phone vibrated a short time after, and I got an email from my Twitter titled “Direct message from Chris Hardwick.” I was like, “FU-WHAT?” And this is what he said: “TWO DAYS. See me!!!” (In direct response to me considering driving to Seattle two days and see Spoon and Chris or just one day to see Spoon.) It made me all giddy. But in this instance, I was like, okay now I have to see him. CHRIS HARDWICK TOLD ME TO.
I kinda really dig him.
What else?
Speaking of Doctor Who – it starts in…SIXTEEN DAYS. Boo yeah. Just to prolong my distorted reality that Ten never actually regenerated, I’ll be watching loads of David Tennant episodes this week. I’ll try not to go on and on like I did a couple months ago. Sorry about that. Seriously, we were copy-editing an issue of the Ledger a few weeks ago and I genuinely forgot that tenant was spelled with one N. Hehe. But Tumblr’s been my new source of Tennant love, and LOLs.
Speaking of attractive men from the UK, Libby and I were watching 30 Rock tonight, and it was the second episode with Michael Sheen in it, and I can’t help but find him kinda really hot. I don’t know why. He wears a suit quite well, and his Welsh accent is sexy. When I mentioned that, Libby’s ears perked up and was like, “who is he?”
“That’s Michael Sheen. He was Frost in “Frost/Nixon,” and one of the Volturi.” Please don’t hate me for knowing that. It was unavoidable that I’d consume at least some information about New Moon from Oh No They Didn’t.
“Right, but he’s really hot!”
“Okay?”
“No, with long hair and facial hair, he’s really hot. He’s in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans!”
“When the hell did you watch that movie?”
“Today! It was on TV.”
“Oh, okay.”
And I rest Libby’s case.
Yeah, I know right? Mmmhmm.
He’s quite dashing as a normal Welsh man too.
In music news.
[Begin rant] I WANT TO BE AT SXSW RIGHT NOW. I REALLY REALLY REALLY DO. I KEEP SEEING ALL THESE TWEETS AND FACEBOOK POSTS FROM SXSW, AND IT MAKES ME SAD. I'VE LISTENED TO TWO LIVE STREAMS SO FAR – SPOON AND FRIGHTENED RABBIT. AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT WAS PLAYED EARLIER AND I MISSED IT GRRRRRRR!!! [End rant]
But I am going to see the Morning Benders at Sonic Boom on April 2nd. I've been trying to figure out a way to not to have to drive to Seattle and park, but my ferry plan has failed. Sonic Boom is a good 6 miles from the ferry dock, and I'm not about to walk 6 miles there and back. I could take some public transit, which I haven't done in a long time, but that'll take a good half an hour with the Seattle transit schedule Hmm. I'll keep that in mind. I just don't want to battle with Seattle traffic and pay $10 for parking. Plus, driving to Bremerton is way shorter than driving to Seattle. Half the distance to be exact. And if there's a chance that I'll be going to Seattle twice that week, I don't want to drive twice like I will be doing the next week.
Why would I possibly drive to Seattle twice a wee, two weeks in a row? Animal Collective and Danny Perez's "visual album" ODDSAC is having a screening at the Egyptian Theater on March 30th. It's gonna be all acid trippy and psychedelic and AMAZING. But the real reason I'm considering paying for this crazy bit of AnCo madness is that the info says that Perez and "members of Animal Collective" will accompany the screening. What exactly does "members of Animal Collective" mean? Does it mean that all members or just Deakin will be at the screening, because Deakin is playing a solo show at Neumo's the next day? Grrr. If I miss the chance to see Panda Bear in any capacity, I'll be heartbroken.
Looks like some fucking crazy stuff. Even The Stranger recommended going in this week’s issue.
Oh, I should probably address where my title came from. It’s another Doctor Who reference, but this one is from the Who-centric Trock (Timelord rock) band Chameleon Circuit. I don’t know why I didn’t discover them before now, because all my Youtube channels were pointing me into its direction. Seriously. The Vlog Brothers (Hank and John Green) were integral in getting DFTBA Records started, and Hank releases his nerdy stuff on it, and Chameleon Circuit is on DFTBA (Don’t forget to be awesome), and guess who’s in Chameleon Circuit?
This guy.
That’s right. Alex Day of his “Alex reads Twilight” videos. In them, he’s all snarky and British in his critique of Twilight. It’s quite entertaining. Yay for Nerdfighters!
I haven’t done a TV post in a while. Well, besides Doctor Who.
But yesterday was the beginning of the end. No, it’s not 2012 yet, the Reckoning has not come.
Season 6 of Lost started last night. I just watched the premiere today, and it was superb. I vote that one mystery is solved per episode. At least one mystery, cause lord knows there’s more mysteries than episodes this season. I’ll try not to be too spoilery, but some might slip out.
But the reason for this post isn’t to recap the season premiere, because that’d be annoying and I still wouldn’t be able to explain it enough for anyone to remotely understand. If you don’t watch Lost, stop reading if you haven’t already…in that case you wouldn’t be reading this sentence. …
Anyway, I’ve been watching Lost since the beginning. And I’ve had my times of confusion, sure, but the show’s never been crap. Which is something I can’t say for other shows *coughHeroesGrey’sAnatomycough.* So stop hating. Lost rocks. And there will be hole in our television lineup once it’s gone. You can’t deny it. Obviously people care enough to try to understand what the hell is going on.
That said, this last season has a lot to accomplish. Seriously. J.J. Abrams, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, if you don’t knock this out of the park, excuse the cliche, then we’re going to hate you. It’ll be the worst let down ever. I would have wasted 6 years of my life following this show. So I’ve compiled a list of things that you need to clear up. At least the things I can remember. These are in no particular order.
1. What the hell happened to Claire?
We know that Aaron’s all good now, but after she went all bonkers when Christian was in the jungle, she disappeared. That brings me to number two.
2. Does Christian Shephard actually exist in the present (or is he all ghosty in Jack’s head)?
I, for one, am totally creeped out by Jack’s visions of his father, but in the Island’s infinite power, did Christian come back to life like Locke could walk again? And does the fact that the airlines “lost” Christian’s body (this is revealed in the alternate history explored in the premiere) have anything to do with his existence/nonexistence?
3. I know a revelation about the Smokey Dragon Thing happened in the premiere, but I need more!
I’m serious. It makes clicking noises and grabs people in a cartoony way, so what the hell is it??!
4. A little abstract, but are Jack and Sawyer brothers?
I remember at one point there were hints of this, but the writers never explored the idea more. Since then, I’ve been looking for clues that they may or may not be. I know it had something to do with their dads.
5. Why does Richard never age? Does he time travel? Or is it REALLLLLY good botox?
I’m just wondering. It’s not all that essential, I just wanna know.
6. Why is Desmond special when it comes to time travel?
Faraday, you’re responsible for answering some questions, yet confusing us even more. Why don’t the rules apply to Desmond? Why can he change the future, but no one else? You had to die before answering my questions, didn’t you Faraday?
7. Who the crap has been whispering in the woods for all this time?
Another of the creepy aspects of Lost has never gone away, yet never really been explained. Someone tried transcripting them, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Is it the Island? Is it their subconscious? Is it God? And if it was the Others like some say, what the heck do they say and why not explain it fully?
8. Walt. Why is Walt so significant? I know he is, but I just don’t know how!
We’ve been following this kid sporadically since the beginning, and we know that Michael’s dead, and they explained Michael’s reconnection with the Island, but Locke kept seeing Walt in the jungle, which was hella creepy. ARE YOU AN ANGEL, WALT?
9. What made all the babies die?
That’s the whole reason Juliet came to the Island, but they never explained why the mothers and children died when they conceived their children on the Island.
10. How did the Island get there in the first place? And why the hell does it do all the crazy stuff it does?
This is a pretty all-encompassing question, but come on, this is what we’re all wondering.
I did notice this though today when I watched the premiere – is the number 108 significant? The Oceanic 6 were on the Island 108 days before getting rescued, and the button had to be pushed every 108 minutes so the Swan station wouldn’t malfunction, or whatever.
Oh, and the goddamn polar bear. I’m guessing it got stuck their when the Island got all dislodged in time and space, like when Ben jumped into the Arctic after he spun the wheel. I just wanna know.
I WANNA KNOW EVERYTHING! It was sure nice to see Charlie in the premiere though in all those alternate history sequences, and Boone. Damn he was hot.
I’d rather not completely change my own principle way of writing, but I might have to in order to get better than a C in my creative nonfiction writing class. I mean seriously, woman…a flipping C? Not to sound too high and mighty, but I don’t get Cs in classes strictly about WRITING. Foolish woman.
But apparently, after a pep talk from Marisa yesterday, Professor likes IMPROVEMENT. Even if I had an amazing rough draft, my second draft has to be even more amazing, and my THIRD draft has to be almost sent from heaven. I DON’T DO THIRD DRAFTS. I write a great draft, and mess with it slightly here and there. So now, against my own conscience, I have to start with a shitty draft and improve immensely from there. Seriously, if some of the papers I read got higher grades than I did because they improved more on crap than I improved on a great paper, I’m gonna smack someone. Honestly, she told me that with MINOR adjustments that this was ready for publication in the school’s lit mag. I would have submitted it if the villain in the story didn’t go to our school.
That might get awkward, even though I doubt she’d ever read Tahoma West anyway.
I’m sorry if I sound arrogant right now, but I’m pissed. Her critique was all, “this is really good, you should submit it after making a couple adjustments,” and then I get my grading sheet back and she said, “met genre requirements, perfect grammar, used craft techniques effectively, but oh, yeah…you got a C.”
WHAT?
This is a seemingly waste of a blog, but it felt like a change up from what I usually write about. Because I’m sure you’re getting tired of my ramblings about…shit I don’t even remember what I’ve been writing about lately. Oh right, Doctor Who, missing my best friend, and music. Duh. Pretty much been what most of my tweets have been about for the last two weeks.
I took Libby’s senior portraits a couple weeks ago, and I never posted any pics, but this was one of my favorites.
I just freaking love her hair in it.
And here’s one from one of Laura’s going away parties.
Miss you already. ❤
OH MY GOD.
NEW WAS.
HOLY BALLSACK.
I wish I could embed this video, but Facebook doesn't want me too, and this guy hasn't uploaded it to Youtube yet.
And here’s Nobody Move at Johnny Brenda’s in Philly two nights ago. I just wish that Laura could go to the WAS show in Hoboken tomorrow night.
Oh, and here’s a show roundup from What’s the Word, including twitter pics and a link to a review and some better pictures. Philly Show Roundup. Damn Keith is looking good. One more thing to look forward to in May. Holy crap May is going to be the most amazing month EVER.
Hmm, what else?
Hello Thomas Mars. I get to see you again tomorrow.
You I get to see you, Laurent.
And you Deck.
You too, Christian!
And since I won’t be in the pit with time constraints and hopefully no smoke machine, my pics will be amazing. Here’s hoping. And to meet them. That would be fantastic.
And just cause, some David Tennant picspam.
And a bonus of Tennant and Cribbins at the NTAs the other day that Susie posted on the WAS board yesterday. So heartwarming.
Today’s the first day I haven’t been at school since last sunday. Seriously. Class every day this week, and then Ledger this weekend. I mean Jesus Christ, my week has consisted of class, driving, working out, laying out pages, making the most of my last week with Laura for an indefinite amount of time, and watching Doctor Who.
A lot of Doctor Who.
And I can say I’ve spent more time in the Ledger office in one weekend than I ever had. On Saturday after dropping Laura off at the airport at 7:30 for her 9:05 flight to Jersey, her parents dropped me off at school so I wouldn’t have to drive back to school later. So naturally, I had to sleep. Four hours of sleep doesn’t really work well for a layout day. So I dragged a chair in the office and slept on and off for 3 some odd hours with the end of series 3 of Doctor Who playing while I half-slept. I figured I wouldn’t skip those even though I watched them out of order 2 weeks ago. And I love Captain Jack. He’s awesome.
But after that, I didn’t leave school until about 10 when we left to go watch Youth in Revolt at the Lakewood theater. I didn’t pay for it last month, so I thought I might as well since I liked it so much. But that meant being awake for oh – 21 hours, cause when I got home I watched SNL and fell asleep in the couch. It was an interesting day to say the least. My best friend flew across the country, and I slept in the office.
———————-
Sorry, I’m kind of distracted. I’m in the middle of watching both series 4 of Doctor Who and the BBC mini-series Blackpool. I’d like to thank all my friends from across the pond for fueling the fire that is David Tennant as a distraction from both good and bad things. I did need distracting this week after Laura told me she was leaving, but I also didn’t need distracting from my school work. But I have to say, he’s a damn awesome distraction. I haven’t even watched thursday’s Grey’s Anatomy episode yet. I’ve been THAT off this week.
(Posted on the WAS board)
Hopefully once I finish with series 4, I can get back into the swing of things. School. Classes. Homework. Just as long as none of my other friends just up and leave, I think I’ll be good. Please, don’t leave. I think I’ll go mad. Stay here. It’s less complicated.
At least this week is going to end WONDERFULLY. Seeing Phoenix on Saturday. Yeah, the same Phoenix I saw just over a month ago, seeing them again. YES.
(And btw, I declared my major this week. So that was one thing I took care of that I said I was going to take care of.)
This is possibly the longest I’ve gone without writing a new blog in quite a long time. It’s the tenth day of 2010. 1/10/2010.
There’s much to discuss – but I’ll just list a few that have been of note in the last week.
1. Classes started.
2. I have two hippie teachers.
3. One of which tells us about drug trips and playing clubs in the 60s. He’d pretty badass.
4. I didn’t get into TV Criticism. *FACEPALM*
5. Spoon’s new album leaked, and I was clever enough to find the direct source of the leak. *Laughs maniacally*
6. It’s amazing.
7. I’ve been on a Doctor Who marathon for the last few days, because I miss Tennant. Ten was the best Doctor.
❤
8. Oh, and Laura's moving to New Jersey in less than a week. Well, fuck.
9. I almost had a nervous breakdown yesterday when I found out.
10. But I have wonderful friends who keep me sane, even if they can sometimes be the cause of my insanity.
What else?
OH RIGHT!
NBC sucks. Like, a lot. They just can't give up this stupid chin.
Jay Leno is getting his time slot back because NBC realized that Leno at 10 would never work. But this also means that Conan’s Tonight Show will be moved back to 12:05. Wouldn’t it be the Tomorrow Show then? Anyway, there’s always the possibility of Conan losing his gig, which would suck even worse. Cause Conan is way funnier than Jay.
Grrr.
Except I’m not yelling at John Barrowman, more like ZUCKER!
Sorry, I’ve been fangirling about Doctor Who and David Tennant ALL WEEK.
See? I drew a TARDIS on my notebook for Creative Non Fiction.
But there will be one good thing to come from Jay leaving 10 p.m., NBC will be speeding up the process of getting the pilot of Tennant’s new show “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer” out there. Stupid title, I know. But this man belongs on television. Preferably UK television, but I’ll take what I can get. Maybe people will go as apeshit over him as they did Hugh Laurie. I doubt it, but here’s hoping.
Ugh. I have homework to do. But I thought I’d have a quick update, since Harry Potter has been in my home screen for over a week, which isn’t bad, but it was getting old.
THIS IS A TANGENT. 