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.
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?
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’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. 