celiloquy

Breet just sniffed my open wound (which I put bandaids over). She's a carnivore. I hope she doesn't want to eat me like the mouse does. I've noticed lately that the mouse (the grey one) is really interested in me when I wake up. She stands on the hut and sniffs at me through the bars. She wants to eat my flesh. I know this because when I hand her food through the bars, she discards the food and goes for my finger.

Today is Melody Perkins' 36th birthday! Hope she's having a great one, wherever she is.

I've heard "That Thing You Do!" (the song, not the movie) at Cub the last two weeks in a row. That's so goddamn awesome.

I have nothing else to say except that lately I've been alternating between watching Glee over and over again, and playing Castle Age/Vampire Wars/Sorority Life/Petville/Farmville. The latter two less often. The latter one REALLY less often because all of a sudden, it's so memory/bandwidth intensive that I literally can not do ANYTHING else while Farmville is on. My beautiful new baby is getting old.

BUT ANYWAY. Yeah. I am that fucking person on Facebook who plays tons of games now. But I'm also that fucking person who can't shut up about Glee.

I'm NOT. But at the same time, I didn't really sleep the last couple nights, because my brain was in overdrive thinking of Glee (or if not directly thinking OF Glee, thinking of things that REMIND me of Glee).

I'm not going to get DUMB because I haven't actually had a fandom in quite awhile that lasted more than a few months. But I do want to remember how Glee affects me right now.

I avoided Glee for all of its 2009 run for ~personal reasons~, which I will briefly detail here:

*I had a really shameful high school career, and still have trouble watching shows/movies that take place in high school, because they bring a lot of bad feelings. Coulda shoulda woulda, boo hoo. If regrets were horses, we'd have a surplus of glue.

*I was... kind of in theater/choir? In high school. I had "acting talent" (I put this in quotes because it wasn't really acting talent so much as it was comedic talent, and it wasn't acting so much as it was improvisational. I sucked then and still do suck reciting OTHER people's lines) or something like it and should have been a shoo-in for theater, except I was also a psycho with severe feelings of inadequacy and it Just Didn't Work Out.

Choir was similar. I had been told my whole life that I couldn't sing for shit, and my mother convinced me not to take Choir classes. When I was a senior, I finally figured FUCK THAT and just went ahead and did it, and was *okay*. I still am *okay*, but I'm not good. But then I think if I would have just taken choir as a freshman, learned about music, whatever, maybe I'd be okay now. If regrets were jelly beans, President Reagan would have died of diabetes.

I still... it's been almost ten years since I took my first theater class and realized how WRONG it felt, when it SHOULD have felt so right. I always wanted to be an actress, or a singer, or in show biz. But I hated it. But I knew I SHOULD have loved it, I knew that. I don't know why I didn't.

I did so many really just plain DUMB things in theater/choir class, and in the 2 plays I was marginally involved in. I have fortunately suppressed most of it, and what I do remember was horrible. Just horrible. If regrets were ratings, Conan O'Brien would still be the host of the Tonight Show.

So, long story short, being reminded of the debacle that was my high school performing arts experience usually only brings pain. Being reminded of how BADLY I did in contrast to how WELL other people did... I'm lucky that those feelings are finally starting to fade, because in the past, they've led to me doing a lot of stupid things to cope. If regrets were vacuum cleaner bags, I'd be able to actually vacuum the floor.


OKAY SO ALL THAT SAID, that's why I avoided Glee. I didn't WANT to see a show about talented youngsters with the world ahead of them, going after their dreams, having ten years I don't have anymore. I didn't want to see a show about GOOD high school musical performances. I didn't WANT to have a show that would bring back memories.


But there's something about Glee that only seems to remind me of the good parts of high school. The ubiquitous purple chairs. The white brick walls, the dirty chalkboards, the setting winter afternoon sun. Staying after school late. It makes me nostalgic for those little aspects of high school that never seem to change.

And the stories are so compelling, the characters are so interesting, well-drawn and deeply, DEEPLY flawed that you want to see them happy. More than anything, you want to see things work out for these people because they're so fun, and cute and you end up liking them all SO MUCH. (Well, I personally don't really like Emma and Finn that much. They kind of piss me off. But everyone else, I'm very cool with.)

Most surprising of all is the fact that it doesn't make me feel "old", like I blew my chance, or like it's too late. I totally expected it to, but it doesn't. The fact that the show addresses those feelings in its characters really helps. Rachel Berry doesn't want to see her high school career go by with nothing to show for it, so she goes way overboard to overcompensate. Will regrets not chasing his dreams. April Rhodes is the biggest mess you can imagine. Quinn is literally watching her life crumble around her. But they all have this passion in them, an outlet that makes them feel young, strong, powerful. And when they feel that way, you feel that way too.

So, yeah. I'm actually really glad I gave Glee a chance. It doesn't give me any of the bad feelings I get from a lot of other similar shows/movies.

In short, it lives up to its title.

( Gross and TMI )

Cut in case talk of atheism, criticism of prayer, or discussion of cancer may prove triggering. Also NSFW.

( After the daggone jump )

Nabbed from evila_elf

India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar Uniform Charlie Alpha November Uniform November Delta Echo Romeo Sierra Tango Alpha November Delta Tango Hotel India Sierra, Charlie Oscar Papa Yankee Alpha November Delta Papa Alpha Sierra Tango Echo India Tango Tango Oscar Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Lima India Victor Echo Juliet Oscar Uniform Romeo November Alpha Lima.0:) Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Mike Echo Mike Echo


The LJ meme is alive and well. :)

One of these times, I'm going to do the stereotypical "one person dabs paint/food on other person and it turns into a sexy food/paint fight" trope, except play it so the person with the food or paint on them does one of the following things:

-Bursts into tears, forcing the other person to apologize and explain what they were trying to do, all the while the messy person is sobbing hysterically

-Punches the other person, saying they "don't play that shit"

-Silently goes into the bathroom to clean up, comes back out and it's never spoken of again

-Something else hilarious.

-???

-Profit.

Yes, I actually stayed up until 5 (actually, 6:30) to watch the eps. I didn't think that was possible, but I only took a brief one hour nap and got right back up to watch 'em.

Uh, thoughts?

I'm confused and sad by what they did with the opening credits sequence. The MMPR opening credits in their various incarnations are something I saw so many times as a kid that they're forever burned into my psyche. I forgot my multiplication tables, but I'll never forget exactly how the original opening credits went.

They... I'm not sure how to explain what they did. You'd have to see it. The credit screens themselves look like something a six year old would make in Windows Movie Maker. The fonts are generic and horrible, there's random floating graffiti crap everywhere, they added random clips that didn't belong there, and overall, I've seen much better production values on Youtube on a regular basis.

And I'm torn. I know in my heart none of the fans are going to like it. I don't LIKE it, but I don't HATE it, either. It's almost like a tribute to the original opening. It's almost as if they're saying it's so iconic, so part of the viewing consciousness, that they don't need to show it. Instead, they can just SUGGEST it, they can just REFER to it, and people will get it and laugh.

And the second time, I did laugh a little. So maybe that's... a successful tribute?

On the other hand, the "tribute" is ugly and badly produced. Full stop. There is no getting around how bad it looks in places. The original opening did look dated, I admit it. But what they did to update it does not scream "updated yay pretty new for 2010!". It screams "3rd grade video production class project yay!".

So that kind of... made me confused.

On to the episodes themselves. Hoboy.

( After the jump )

HAPPY 2010!

The Top 09s of 09

Directions: Fill out your top 9s of each category. Add some if you wish. Go nuts.

TOP 09 OBSESSIONS

1. Star Trek. It has to be number one (LOL NUMBER ONE) because it was so unexpected, and it was what I'd been waiting for since I was a little kid: a Star Trek movie that EVERYONE wanted to go see, that made shit tons of money, that wasn't some little underground thing that only nerds enjoyed, and that was plastered all over cereal boxes. I never did get my t-shirts, I think I may have lost the Rice Krispies boxes, but it's okay. Because I don't need the t-shirt to remember that 2009 was the year of Trek, and it was amazing.

2. King Heathen and all the other Youtube Atheists. There is no One True Atheist Viewpoint, but there are ideas that are almost universally agreed upon, and at long last, I know what they are, I agree with them too, and they make sense, thanks to The King. I've spent so much time this year watching KH's videos, and he's my favorite Youtube Atheist by far, with his frank, folksy-geeky sense of humor, and his way of explaining some of these difficult concepts so I know exactly what he's talking about. He reminds me of some of my favorite teachers from school, and I'm really glad he's out there. He makes studying the bible fun.

3. Speed Gibson. I'm putting it before Penguins?! Yes, I am. Because that was ANOTHER one that came absolutely out of nowhere. I started out transcribing parts of it for mTurk, found it interesting, and eventually downloaded all 178 episodes to listen to just for fun. Well, "Just For Fun" soon turned into an all-encompassing obsession that only waned because I realized I could not listen to it and hope to get work done anymore. I'll get too distracted. So when I want to start on the manga, all I'll probably have to do is turn it on and it'll flow like magic. That's pretty impressive for a 70 year old radio drama.

4. Penguins. Okay, yeah. This ALSO came out of nowhere. But it at least makes a little sense; it was on after Spongebob. Penguins turned out to be a series that's really given me a lot of just plain old giddy happiness. It's a show that's just FUN. It's a show that's just cute, and hilarious, and fun. I've also had a small part in pioneering the fandom, which is something I always wanted to do. So that's pretty badass. I will stay with Penguins through 2010 and hopefully soon get my own Kowalski plushie/action figure.

5. Nintendo/Video games in general. Never before, or at least not for a LONG time, has the drive to own the current generation game consoles been so strong in me. I spent late 2008 agonizing over whether or not to buy a DS. Then I did. And I loved it. I reignited my passion for Pokemon. Then, the DSi came out, and I actually ran right out and got it the same year it came out. Something I've never done with a console. Then, the batshittery with the Wii, which I also now own, and despite having only one game (and 4 Virtual Console titles), play more frequently than any sane adult should. I'm far from a Nintendo fangirl, but I am now in possession of both their current consoles. My 8 year old self would be proud.

6. Angry Video Game Nerd. I had never watched his videos before, but once I discovered him, oh man. AVGN contributed in large part to my Wii obsession, but he also taught me a lot of shit about games, consoles and retro gaming culture that I'm very glad I learned.

7. Farmville. It really is the new Neopets for me. I started playing in, what, October, but I'm level 29. I added a bunch of total strangers as Facebook friends just to have an easier time of Farmville. I just wish it wasn't so memory intensive. Now I can't really do anything else while Farmville is running, which makes me sad.

8. The Dark Knight/Watchmen. I'm putting them together, because they're the two best comic book based movies I've ever seen, and they both made me go :O this year. They have changed the way I look at superheroes, and ignited an interest in trying to capture that dark, gritty, hilariously horrifying mood in my own project that I still haven't done anything with. I WAS A HERO GODDAMMIT.

9. Linkara/Atop the Fourth Wall. I still haven't come close to watching all his videos, but he fits in with number 8, because the few things I've learned by watching his stuff has made comic books more accessible. I still know exactly fuck all about comics, but I've learned JUST ENOUGH to realize that I'd like to learn more. Up to this point, comics, the Batman mythos in particular, to me were like OH SHIT MAN I'M NOT GOING BACK TO 1939 TO READ ABOUT THIS CRAP, NEVER MIND, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THAT BADLY. But yeah, you know, I do want to know that badly. Or at least I feel like I could do it now.


TOP 09 IRL EVENTS

1. Cleaning out the apartment at Lakeview. I'll never forget sitting on the floor, my phone's mp3 player blasting music that those walls had never heard before and will probably never hear again.

2. My grandmother's actual death.

3. Everything following that.

4. Doing actual karaoke for the first time, and at least being passable at it. I will never doubt adrenaline again.

5. Halloween!

6. My dad's accident.

7. Everything following that.

8. Seeing Star Trek, being at Burger King afterwards. Such simple bliss.

9. Mir's death, and everything following that. Breet being a widow. D:



TOP 09 CHANGES FROM 2008

1. My grandma is no longer with us. Neither is Mir.

2. I now own a phone with a qwerty keyboard, an iPod, a DSi, a Wii, and a cordless fancy ass landline phone.

3. My hair is in the process of growing out from a pixie cut.

4. I worked all year.

5. I kept my actual fandom-ness mostly to myself, with only a few exceptions.

6. I'm back to not having a digital camera, but it's because I lost the charger. Not because I don't own one.

7. I'm pretty much a homeowner now.

8. Next year, I should be much more financially secure. At this time in 2008, I HOPED I would be, but it wasn't a sure thing. And I wasn't broke MUCH this year, though toward the end, it was like "Sorry, I only have 47 cents."

9. I'm actually close to being legitimately happy.


TOP 09 SONGS

(This one, I have to go by last.fm!)

1. Lady GaGa- Bad Romance. Yeah, considering this one just came out in November, and it's already my number one for the year? This is an amazing song.

2. Demon Kogure- Never. I don't really know why this one is number 2. It's really pretty, though.

3. Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green- ~Ending~. Damn straight. I never even finished that game, but this music is incredible. All the magic of Red and Blue, with the additional bits that still make me tear up.

4. Pokemon Diamond- Ending. Really beautiful. Diamond and Pearl really are great games, and this is a very bittersweet ending.

5. MIQ- Kageki! Not much to say. It's from Gekiranger, and it inspired the hell out of me for awhile.

6. Ichirou Mizuki- Chikai. Same.

7. Michael Jackson- Smooth Criminal. Can you believe I never knew this song existed until this year? God damn.

8. Guns N Roses- November Rain. Still one of the best epic ballads ever.

9. No Vacancy- Heal Me, I'm Heartsick. Hahah. From School of Rock. I was really into this song in the spring/summer. Awesome.

So, I finally went ahead and ordered some Lunapads.

Most of the summer, I thought about it, because it made sense; disposable menstrual pads are at best tolerable (though Always' Infinity pads are pretty awesome, but cost $10 a box), and the disposable pads and tampons decompose at about the same rate that fundamentalist Christian republicans approve of their children's marriage to flamboyant trisexual liberal atheists.

After a long talk back in August with leilawinters, who made the decision to go greener earlier this year, and after reading over the Lunapads (and Party In My Pants) site, after putting it off and being sad that I wouldn't get to use my $5 off coupon, I finally bought... well, I only bought one pad, with 4 liners. So, that's one pad and 5 liners total.

So by no means will my next (presumably next? I hope my order comes before my undoubtedly late period does) period be 100% ~green~, but hopefully part of it will be.

See, the problem with my period ( is incredibly TMI )

My dad informed me that he actually saw the end of RPM this morning (at 5am), which surprised me. I thought our shitty affiliate played RPM episodes a week late. I expected the RPM finale to play NEXT week at 5am. But, nope. I was wrong all this time.
So I decided to check my local ABC affiliate to see when they're premiering MMPR, and AH SHIT, look at what they've gone and done:



Great news for my dad, sad news for me. Funny how KSTP takes "12pm EST (check local listings)" to mean "5am CST".

Don't get me wrong... I love MMPR. And I'll try like hell to either still be up at 5am, or get up, to watch the remastered eps and see what's changed, if anything has. But damn.

ONE GOOD THING is that it probably won't get pre-empted too often. Rarely do sporting events take place at five in the morning.

Also:

So, I already opened my Xmas presents from Miki. Actually, I already got most of them at the end of November (new purse, new clothes, new shoes, Mir plushie, Pony flashlight). The package she sent contained a gift bag for me with 3 $10 iTunes cards. I've never bought anything from iTunes before... never really needed to. Used to scoff at the absurdity (being a child of the Napster generation :D) of PURCHASING digital music.

So i probably won't purchase music, though I will look around and see if I can find anything rare and awesome. But, maybe I'll get the Watchmen motion comic episodes.

Speaking of FRIGGEN WATCHMEN. That movie (and now the graphic novel) has become my constant companion, either in "OMG IT WAS SO COOL IN WATCHMEN WHEN--" recollections, or just in thought, OR in watching it to de-stress. I'm in the process of watching the Ultimate cut (just the movie) and the graphic novel arrived today.

I hope one day I can write a story that good. Watchmen is hands down the best superhero movie I've ever seen (even Dark Knight isn't quite as good), and it's serving as a lot of spiritual inspiration for my STILL unnamed project.

But anyway, I was going to talk about CHRISTMAS. Which probably is going to be absolutely nothing since I already have all my gifts, and so do my parents. I have one book for my dad that he doesn't know about, and that's it.

One of my mother's presents was a new, fancy ass landline phone. Why Miki sends my MOTHER expensive electronics, I don't know. My dad took one look at it from across the room and went "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?" Well, we're all adults, and I think we can handle a phone that is rapidly becoming industry standard. Well, my dad and I can, anyway.

I'm done writing. How did I used to do this every day? LJ, I'm sorry, but I can't handle long entries as much anymore. If you really care about what I'm doing, look me up on Twitter. This isn't goodbye, this is just me becoming accustomed to thinking in 160 characters or less.

The immortal classic:

HAPPY THE BIRTHDAY OF JESUS CHRIST THE GIRL

http://www.engrish.com/2006/12/a-girl/

To this day, I look through Lands End catalogs to see if Melody Perkins is in them. She hasn't been for years, but I still look.

I'm on the fence about whether or not I'll try to get to Power Morphicon in 2010. It was entirely off the table and impossible up until recently. It might be possible now.

As I've said in the past, if by some bizarre miracle, they get Melody for the con, I will move heaven and earth to get there. She's the deciding factor, and they probably won't get her, so I probably won't move heaven and earth. I guess it depends on whether or not MMPR's return lights some fire in me. It probably won't, though. I'm still recovering from the fandom mania of 2006-2008.

BUT THEN WHO KNOWS.

Whatever. Gotta work some more.

So I was getting pretty bored with Farmville before the 25th. I had recently added like... 27 friends from the Farmville forums, and granted, having 27 new neighbors gives me one fuck of an advantage, but before all this shit started happening, I was like FUCK THIS GAME IT'S SO BORING.

But after Miki went home, one of the first things I did when I really had time was check back in on my farm. I had like... 80 gifts in the queue. And hundreds of shit from other applications that I blocked today. Sorry, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, Yoville and all 2893873232 other farm games. Farmville is the only application on Facebook I play consistently, with Restaurant City a VERY distant second.

But, now that it's almost Xmas, they added some Xmassy shit, and the game is fun again. :D Farmville is definitely the new Neopets for me. Even though the old Neopets is still KIND of important... at least important eanouff that I didn't forget the Advent Calendar, Farmville is much more exciting.

I gotta say, tho... RE: all 2388943282438823 applications I had to block today, most of the invites/gifts/whatever were from my new "friends". Many of whom literally play like 40 games regularly on Facebook. How are they able to do that without going batshit? How can they keep them all straight?! There are so many farm/aquarium/garden/whatever games that I can't begin to list them all, and yet these folks apparently play all of them daily.

Even in my slacker hayday, I can NOT imagine being able to play so many really involved, time and attention intensive games on a regular basis. I really can't. And I kind of feel bad when I block applications because the games seem fun, but I can barely concentrate on one or two. And when I added all these new people, I added them so we could be neighbors on FARMVILLE. Full stop.

A quick update.

Miki is in town. Unnhhhhh. Funeral arrangements made. Visitation Monday night 5-7. Funeral Tuesday 11am. Burial, then lunch.

Miki has been dropping craploads of money on this trip, and on me. My dad says I am a distraction for her, so she isn't forced to confront her feelings, either of grief, or of wondering why she isn't feeling grief. As always, he is right.

New shoes, new purse, new clothes. Random cat plushie that looks like Momo and Mir's demonic lovechild.

Feeling okay. Pretty soon I'll have my period, but I think all the stress is fucking with it. GOOD.

It really is, just... quiet. Cold, and going at a regular (maybe even too fast) pace, but at the same time, there's this palpable stillness. Very peaceful. It kind of feels like I'm all in touch with eternity and bullshit. See Star Trek: Insurrection for more.

But really. It's definitely the calm before the storm. And it's quite beautiful. I'm reading hilarious reviews on Agony Booth (how did I let that site pass me by for so long), working. The fan is on, yeah it's dark and cold and November, but it's also just... very nice. I feel kind of like I did that night back in summer when my mother was in the hospital and I was listening to Speed Gibson, and suddenly I realized what a beautiful day I was, because I knew it wouldn't last forever.