“Here we are again…”

“… I feel the chemicals kicking in.”

Oh My Glee, I cannot get that song out of my head! Probably doesn’t help that I have watched that performance probably a bajillion times in the past couple days. I cannot get over it 🙂

And I am super pumped that tomorrow is First Listen Friday, so we’ll get the songs for next week’s episode, “Original Songs”. I am beyond pumped for all of the Warblers songs. J’adore the Warblers and all of the guys who play Warblers. If you are a fan of Glee, but haven’t started following these guys on Twitter, you are missing out. I’m just sayin’… as much as I love New Directions, I am a Warblers gal through and through.

So, last night was another fitful night of sleep. I have a sore throat and was having trouble breathing so it didn’t hurt. I dragged myself upstairs this morning and just stood there with my hood pulled over my head as the dogs attacked me with kisses. Hot tea helped a bit… I am pretty sure I had 6-7 mugs of tea today. I would have drank more, but I thought I was going to float away as it was.

I didn’t work on any SPSS stuff today, but I did finish formatting all of the thesis stuff I have done thus far, and I made up my title pages, approval pages, abstract page, acknowledgements, table of contents, tables page, figures page, and fixed some of the headings throughout my paper. I will SPSS this weekend. I am just super scared that I messed up some coding (even though my inter-coder reliability was, like, 98%) and that I’m going to SPSS bad data, even though I’m sure my data is fine. UGH! But, it will get done, for reals… especially since my sister will be here in a week, and my brother soon after. I don’t want to have to worry about thesis stuff while they are here because I would rather spend time with my siblings.

Besides computer/thesis stuff, I watched a lot more of A Very Potter Musical while I sucked down my mugs of tea. I was laughing so hard at various points that I thought I was going to choke on my tea and soup. And I’ve seen this thing soooooo many times by now. But I was watching the “To Dance Again” bit, and I was reminded of the gif of Joe Walker as Voldemort dancing and I just started laughing really hard… I can’t help it 🙂

What else, what else? Oh, America totally got it right by ousting (SPOILER ALERT) AshTon on American Idol tonight. (END SPOILER) She had too much of an attitude for someone who hasn’t earned the right to call herself a diva yet.

My mom and I watched Bones… it was the second episode of the sniper case. As much as I’m not a fan of David Boreanaz as a person, I love me some Special Agent Seeley Booth. My mom reads the Bones books, and loves mysteries… she’s the one who got me started watching Bones a few years ago. I like watching this show and trying to guess who the killer is before the end of the episode. However, we know who the sniper is, so that aspect of interactive watching is temporarily gone.

My NBC shows were reruns, alas, so nothing new to look forward to there. We got Cyrus in the mail from netflix, so we’ll watch that tomorrow – woot!

Anyway, I am tired and my throat is still scratchy, so I’m gonna go to sleep. I have work in the morning – boo.

Have a good one

 

Thank you, readers! I’m almost at 5,000 views!!!! (Did not expect that…)

Thank you to everyone who has stumbled upon my blog. I know I have a couple of friends who say they read it sometimes (thanks, friends!), but to be almost at 5,000 views means that lots of strangers have found their way here.

It really is crazy that so many people have taken the time to click some sort of link to get here. And even if you don’t like what you find/read, it still tickles me pink that I have gone from 22 views in June 2010 to 1,472 views in February. So, thank you thank you thank you a thousand times over for checking out my blog 🙂

Today was super productive, which is always nice.

I have been sleeping better (woot) even though I am super stressed out about everything. My mom made chocolate chip muffins, so breakfast was fun. We played some Wii bowling and then got ready to run errands. We stopped at Michael’s so she could get another scrapbook (she’s in the midst of scrapping the 6 week trip she took with my sister last summer and needed a third scrapbook). Then we went to Target to get some groceries. My mom totally got hit on at the deli counter by some other customer… I just hung back with the cart and chuckled. When we were driving to the gas station after leaving Target we laughed like whoa at that guy’s expense. I told mom she should have flashed him her wedding ring. She did say “my husband” at some point in the conversation, but that guy just kept right on going. HILARIOUS.

When we got home I let the dogs outside so they could play. I’m so used to the MN weather now that since it was in the upper 20s/lower 30s today, I didn’t wear a coat. So, I was outside with the dogs for awhile throwing some sort of frisbee thing for Moose. She was so full of snow by time we were done. Too cute 🙂

Since there was not a new episode of Glee on tonight because of American Idol, I watched some Glee with lunch. I opted for “Never Been Kissed” because I like the songs in the episode, it’s the first appearance of Blaine, and I am a huge Max Adler fan and this episode (along with the Superbowl one) really shows his range of emotions as a conflicted Karofsky. Plus, I could watch and rewatch that “Teenage Dream” scene a bajillion times and never tire of it. How can you not be a lot a bit in love with Blaine/Darren Criss? (Yes, I’m talking to YOU, Molly J…)

After lunch/Glee, I coached my mom on how to use my coding key and coding sheet for my thesis as she agreed to do my inter-coder reliability. (For the record, my mom is the best mom in the world and the greatest mom of all time… she did not have to do this for me, but she did. And for this, and many many many other reasons, she is the best mom ever.) My mom does not know as much as I do when it comes to movies, film history, the Academy Awards, and the history of the Academy Awards. But she was super patient in learning how to use the coding sheet, and after awhile, she was really getting into what she was doing. Over time, she was outright happy when she came across women who were nominated for stuff… saying “You go girl!” and doing some fist pumps every now and again. My mom has always been supportive of me, what I do, and what I believe in. I know at times I tend to veer off into feminist rhetoric (maybe not on here, but I definitely did during undergrad when I was in a video production program surrounded by a fair amount of misogynists… though to be fair, for every jerk who thought men were God’s gift to the movies, there was a guy who was gentlemanly and inclusive of women, even though there were only a handful of us in the program), and I think that by helping with my coding, my mom got a chance to literally see what a minority we are in the film industry.

After awhile, we took a break (I was finishing up editing my thesis proposal draft – woot!) and played some Dance on Broadway. I totally beat my own score for “You Can’t Stop the Beat” – yay me! I got, like, 63,000+ points. Woot woot!

I then helped my mom make dinner. We watched the news and then I folded laundry until it was time for American Idol.

The Top 12 guys sang tonight. I am digging a few of the guys… my two favorites are Brett Loewenstern and Casey Abrams. Brett might be the cutest person of all time, with his wildly curly red hair, his giant Star of David necklace, and his sincerity when it comes to being kind to others. When Ryan Seacrest called him back to the stage and Brett misinterpreted it as a want for a hug, my mom and I laughed so hard that she was in tears and I seriously almost peed in my pants.

And then there’s Casey Abrams… Mmm Mmm Casey Abrams. He kinda reminds me of Seth Rogen, but sexier because he can SING. I seriously hopes he makes it through because I would very much enjoy seeing him perform every week.

No new Glee on tonight, but they showed a few promos for next week’s episode (“Sexy”) and the regionals episode (“Original Song”). I cannot wait for both these episodes… Love me some WARBLERS!!!

Well, I should get going…

Have a good one!

 

You know, I suck when it comes to coming up with titles for stuff… like blog posts, for example.

This is a problem I’ve had for a while… I hated coming up with titles for term papers, projects, and scripts. When I wrote for an Indiana pop culture magazine, I always had trouble coming up with good titles for my entertainment stories. I would submit a whole bunch and my editor would always just make one up before my stuff ran. My lack of skills when it comes to titling things came to a climax during my News Editing class the summer before I started graduate J-school. Coming up with headlines and sub-heads for my newspaper layouts was a hot mess and a half. I remember that class was coming to an end one day and I was just having the worst time trying to come up with a catchy, brief, but awesome headline. I think I ended up typing “I HATE THIS” where the headline was supposed to go (or something along those lines…). It was just frustrating.

The reason my suckiness of coming up with headlines and titles is on my mind is that today I was trying to come up with an awesome title for my thesis. Instead, I just ended up making it longer and even more boring-sounding, which sucks because my thesis topic is AWESOME. I’m just sayin’, it’s gonna knock the socks off of the masses when this shit finally gets done.

Oh, thesis. Why do you bog me down so?

Today I made some progress of my own… I edited my coding key and sheet (though I might have made the key a bit worse… I’m too verbose). I also went through my Works Cited page and double checked that I actually had all of my sources listed. I forgot one, Merriam-Webster.com, so I added that in. Nice. I also took out the one Wikipedia citation that I had. It wasn’t necessary, and just made me look like an idiot for citing Wikipedia.

I’m always worried about citations. I know a decent amount about the topic I’m working on, as well as some background information about the film industry that I’ve picked up from film classes or my leisure reading. So, sometimes I know facts and whatnot off the top of my head. But I’m worried that people won’t believe that I just know this random stuff. So then I have to go out of my way and find someone else who had the same thoughts and facts and cite them. Bah!

I emailed my thesis chair again and re-sent him my stuff. I asked if I could call him next week on one of my day’s off, as I am fearful I am not on the right track to completing my thesis in time to graduate in June. I need to be done by the end of this school year. The rest of my life needs to start, and in order for that to happen, my thesis needs to be DONE. So, hopefully he’ll acknowledge my concerns and we’ll be able to get this straightened out.

So, last night after I posted, I was browsing around on some blogs like I do and saw that Chris Colfer and Darren Criss were to be on the cover of this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly. My heart leapt a bit, as j’adore them both. I always get my EWs on Thursdays, so today I was beyond looking forward to getting the mail. When the mail finally came at 6 pm, my mom handed me the stack and I dug through it to get to my magazine. My magazine was ripped!!!! 😦 There was a giant tear right through Darren Criss’s face! I am going to have EW send me another issue… but I can’t do that for about a week because they don’t have this issue in the Customer Service queue yet. Booooooooooooo

Besides thesis stuff and torn magazines, the rest of my day was spent dancing and reading. My mom and I were crazy people again and decided to do the Expert level on our latin dance/cardio boxing game. At least we had mostly good songs today… Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and Madonna. It’s way easier to dance and punch it out when there is a good song playing. After that, we did a bunch of the Dance on Broadway dances too. I do really good on the tap numbers for some reason, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

After our crazy dancing, I went back to my room to read the latest installment of Dalton. This is the closest thing to a soap opera that I’ve ever been into. Holy hell, it’s addictive. And it’s sooooooo cheeseball, but I love it. It helps pass the time while I wait for new Glee episodes.

Tonight we watched American Idol again (I am really liking this season thus far… all two episodes) and Bones. I am so looking forward to next week’s Gravedigger episode! After that, I actually got to watch 30 Rock (return of Cheyenne Jackson – yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)! Since 30 Rock used to be up against Bones, I would miss it live and have to watch it on the computer. BUT since NBC changed it’s lineup for tonight, 30 Rock is on after Bones – woot! (BTW – I finally broke up with Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve missed 2 episodes and I don’t even miss it. Yay!)

All in all, a grand night for television 🙂

I work all day tomorrow (9:45-5:30), but then have the weekend off! My sister is supposed to be on TV on Saturday afternoon, so it looks like I’ll have to watch college basketball. Boooooo 😦 But I love my sister, so I will watch. It’s her b-day on Monday. This is her first b-day in 4 years where we won’t get to celebrate together. Sadness 😦

Well, off to read. I’m gonna try and finish my Gilda Radner book tonight… that might not happen But I will try!

Have a good one

 

Short Post

Word

I went to the library today, then worked out, then FINISHED CODING (!), then watched some Bones and The Ghost Writer (no, not the awesome show from the ’90s, but the Roman Polanski movie). Now I’m making my Golden Globes chart, then will watch SNL and go to sleep. Woot.

I may/may not post tomorrow (Golden Globes-watching is my priority, sorry). But I will for sure let you know my Golden Globes reactions on Monday!!!

Have a good one

 

I wonder how many dreams/nightmares I’ve had with tornadoes in them? But this one was by far the best one yet.

I have two phobias that outweigh all of my other phobias combined:

1. E.T. (yes, the little alien guy from the movie of the same name)
and
2. Tornadoes

I have been scared of E.T. ever since I was a little girl. He gives me the willies and I still have to sleep facing a wall because I have this feeling that if I don’t face a wall, I’ll wake up and see E.T. next to my bed. I know this is highly unlikely, but I can’t risk it. Besides intruders, E.T. is the reason I sleep with my softball bat next to my bed.

And then there are tornadoes. Now, I’ve never been in a tornado. But, I saw Twister in theaters and that has f-ed me up ever since. (Somehow the tornado from The Wizard of Oz never scared me, but those ones in Twister have made me the most sky-aware person you will ever know.)

For many, many years, I have had several nightmares per year featuring tornadoes. The location is always somewhere I am very familiar with. The people I’m with are either family, friends and/or famous people. And it’s usually the same kind of scenario… everyone is talking and having a good time, and then all of a sudden the sky goes weird and one or more tornadoes form off in the distance. Me and the others are forced to take cover and/or lie/crouch down in a ditch with our arms covering our necks like we did during tornado drills in elementary school. No one ever gets sucked up or blown away, and the tornadoes usually disappear off into the distance once they’ve past, or just disappear altogether. Even though there are no casualties, the nightmares usually disturb me enough to wake me up and make sure that I am in my bed and not in the tornado-infested area.

Last night, I experiences yet another tornado. However, I will not categorize this one as a nightmare, but a dream as it ended up being pretty awesome because of the celebrity appearances (Alec Baldwin was in the one that took place at Hardesty Park in Akron, OH).

Like they say in Inception, I don’t know how the dream started, but I was already in the swing of things.

In the first part of the dream, some family and friends and I were out at some buffet and we were sharing with each other hand-drawn pictures that we ourselves had drawn. Upon exiting, we were walking to the entrance of the movie theater that I frequent here.

Then, I was in some sort of office setting. I was sitting on a chair in a circle of chairs with colleagues (who I didn’t recognize) having some sort of meeting. We all had pens and reporters notebooks. The phone in the office rang, and it was Darrn Criss leaving a message for me. Embarrassed, I got up from my chair and went to the office to try to jot down the phone number he was leaving, but I missed it. The message light was blinking, indicating that there were several messages on the machine. I pressed the button and it was him, rambling on but saying different things than the message we all heard to begin with.

Later, I was in Akron, OH on the street where I grew up. I wasn’t in my house, but the house next door – the one we shared a driveway with. However, instead of being that house, it was more of a barn/wooden storage facility. The same family some friends from the buffet/movie were there, but there were to be others as well. While my family and friends were chatting, I noticed that Darren Criss was sitting by himself underneath one of the windows facing the driveway. I walked over to him and asked if I could join him. We started talking about the Chronicles of Narnia movies. I mentioned how I saw The Lion, the With and the Wardrobe in theaters and told him that I initially didn’t like it, but upon second viewing thought it was okay. I mentioned how I saw Prince Caspian and didn’t like it, and had now interest in seeing The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

As we were talking, the sky went dark and it was thundering and lightning. The wind whipped the large tree across the street so hard I thought it would rip out from its roots. There were no tornado sirens, but we could see through the front window that a tornado had formed and was coming our direction. Everyone stopped what they were doing and laid down, face down on the floor, and put their arms over the back of their necks. As the tornado approached our building, Darren Criss was talking to distract me from the tornado. Even though the wind was so loud and the nearby trees were shaking, he remained calm. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up because in the dream I was shaking and just knew that this time, I was a goner. Although my face was facing the floor, I could see out of my peripherals that the tornado was coming up our street and headed toward us. It ended up swirling left into our driveway, right between the houses, and then it stopped. The sun came out and the tornado got smaller and smaller until it just disappeared back up into the sky.

Everyone went outside to survey the damage. Our brick street was torn up pretty bad, as was our driveway. It was afternoon, but going on dusk. As the sun began to set and we were all still outside, a car followed by several cop cars came speeding down our block. The car didn’t stop in time and it ended up crashing onto the brick rubble down the block a bit. The cop cars stopped in time to flank the crashed car.

As the sun finally set, all our neighbors came out and we had a block party. There was a big bonfire and everyone was having a good time. Then, Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Seth Meyers, Rachel Dratch, Chris Parnell and Amy Poehler showed up. They were all wearing red t-shirts. Ferrell had this huge Earth ball-like thing that he kept rolling toward people. While in the driveway, he rolled the ball toward me and was goading me on in some ridiculous voice. As the ball knocked me down, I began quoting Shakespeare.

And then I woke up and saw it was 10:01 am.

Bonkers, right? I didn’t watch anything SNL related yesterday, but yet there they all were… I guess Darren Criss was there because I watched some of A Very Potter Musical last night, and he is the background on my computer. But I have no idea why we would discuss the Chronicles of Narnia movies. That’s just silly… As for the Shakespeare, that doesn’t make any sense either. I definitely haven’t been keeping up with the Bard as of late.

So I will probably have another tornado dream/nightmare in a few months. Hopefully it’s as entertaining as this one. (It was entertaining to me… probably not to you people who read this.)

But I totally slept, and I slept in. Woot.

It snowed some this morning, but my mom and I still decided to go to the mall (had to do a return and then I wanted to go to Victoria’s Secret. Too bad they don’t sell bigger bra sizes, as $12.99 is ridonkulously cheap. Alas.) and then to see The Fighter.

The Fighter was great. It did wrap up nicely with a bow, but on a whole I dug it. The ensemble was amazing. Christian Bale best get the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. For reals, yo. He’s so good, he’s scary. And Melissa Leo?! Amazing. But I love Mark Wahlberg… even though Mickey Ward is similar to several other characters he’s played before. I’m glad I saw it before the Golden Globes this weekend.

After the movie, my mom and I came home, drank some hot tea/cocoa (it’s coooooold here, yo) and then did our carido boxing/latin dance workout. We were both tired, so we didn’t last long. We watch some Bones with dinner, then I started watching Barry Munday. It’s only meh. But I love Patrick Wilson and Judy Greer.

I work all day tomorrow, but then have the weekend off. I hope to finish coding. And I’m soooooo looking forward to the Golden Globes!!

Have a good one

 

The Merryville Brothers *might* be among my favorite SNL sketches of all time…

So, last night was the first SNL of 2011. Jim Carrey hosted with musical guest The Black Keys (who hail from Akron, OH… my place of residence for almost 20 years… I totally went to high school with their brothers… then in college I sat next to one of said brothers in my freshman year history class…)

Anyway, The Black Keys are awesome. But besides that, SNL was actually pretty decent for the most part last night, and I believe that is due mostly to Carrey’s go-for-broke comedy style, as well as some select choice sketches.

My favorite sketch of the whole night was the Amusement Park bit. This was amazing to watch in High Definition… Jim Carrey, featured actor Taran Killam, and Bill Hader *made* this sketch brilliant. It wasn’t a super funny sketch by any means, but the body language and commitment to the Merryville Brothers was amazing.

I can’t get over how great this is… and superb sketch-length. Not even 3 minutes… brilliant. Way to go, SNL. Finally did something right this season…

I slept in this morning as I am still off my schedule due to working extremely late the other night. Tomorrow night I work from 8 pm – 3 am (but we all know that’ll probably be 4:30 or 5 am… blah), so I’ll be out of whack for a couple days more.

I was going to go to a movie today, but decided against it. Maybe tomorrow morning, depending on when I get up. I am seeing 2 movies this week, by hook or by crook.

Instead, I did laundry, coded for a while (I only have 7 more years to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), played some Wii Sports and Dance on Broadway, and watched Spring Breakdown (big disappointment like whoa, despite some of my favorite female comedians being in it). I also watched some old SNLs with my dad (Netflix is the best!!!).

And now I’ll catch up on some blogs I’ve been reading, and then read some more of a Carol Burnett autobiography I picked up at the library the other day. She’s a classy broad.

Have a good one!

 

You know what always hits the spot? A good movie…

Oy vay.

I had a horrendous night of sleep last night. I even tried to go to bed earlyish… well, not really, but still, I attempted to get my 8 hours. I maybe got 3… blah blah blah.

I dragged myself out of bed at 7:30 and had some oatmeal before heading to work. I was to work from 9:45-4, but it ended up being 9:35-4:20. And those 2 paid-15 minute breaks I was supposed to get just went by the wayside, like almost every single break I’m supposed to get. I would complain about this to my manager, but I am still convinced that my manager doesn’t like me. Though I will see her tomorrow night (workin’ 9 am – 4 am. yikes bikes).

Work on a whole was okay, except for the part where I was getting light-headed toward the end. Thank goodness for water bottles.

I got home around 4:40 and had an orange. Vitamin C!! I helped my mom make dinner and we had tacos when my dad got home. We had tacos with hard shells… I think the last time I had a taco with hard shells I was maybe in middle school. But, since the hard shells have less carbs, my mom opted for those ones (my dad has to watch his carb intake because of his medical needs, so there that is. I, for the record, love carbs. I even have a song about carbs that is set to the tune of Birdland. It goes, “Carbs, carbs, carbs. Carbs, carbs, carbs. Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaarbs. I love car-arbs.”)

During/after dinner we watched Cemetery Junction. Holy hell, was that a great movie! Props to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for writing and directing this gem. I wanted to see it ever since I saw this trailer, but it never came out in theaters by us. Yay for Netflix… I put that sucker at the top of our queue recently. Good thing my dad ended up liking it a lot too… he and I were howling. What a funny movie. But besides being a stitch and a half, there was a lot of heart going on. It had several really great subplots and even though everything came together in the end, I didn’t feel cheated, nor did it feel riddled with cliches. It was just a really, really sweet movie. Great cast too… damn. I love Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson and Ricky Gervais, but my favorite person was the lead guy who played Freddie – Christian Cooke. He looked like a long-lost Culkin brother (like Kieran Culkin, but with blue eyes and a British accent), and I just thought he did a great job. I need to own this movie so I can watch it with both commentaries. I just really, really loved it 🙂

Maybe I’ll go see a movie tomorrow. But most likely not… I’ll need to code and nap. Plus, my nose has been extra sniffly and my throat is getting scratchy again. So maybe I should just stay in bed all day, curl up with Moose and try to sleep it off. But that likely won’t actually happen… I’m not a great nap-taker.

Anyways, I will not be updating this tomorrow night since I’ll be at work from 9pm-4am and know I will want to sleep right when I get home. So, I hope you have a swell Friday night!

have a good one

 

Totally got a lot done today… and watched some Glee :)

So, I didn’t end up going to the movie or the mall. *But* I totally got a lot of work done today, so that was even better. (Well, not better than going to a movie… but still.)

I tried my best to sleep in, but i was up around 7 something, so I turned on my light to read a bit. I’ve only a few more chapters of “Long Way Down” to go and it’s due in a few days, so I need to finish it. Perhaps tonight.

After breakfast, I went back down to my room to work on more coding. I coded for hours upon hours today… and though my eyes are screwy and hurt from staring at the computer screen, I totally am on 1994 or 1995. WOOT. Times infinity.

I did come across a few problems today… for some reason my Excel was crashing every few minutes. That was entirely frustrating. I did check to see if there was some sort of update I missed… there was one from 2008. (You can see how often I don’t use Excel on this computer.) So, I did the update and also deleted about 28 GB worth of stuff off my hard drive (conducting videos my sister made). With the update and all this newly acquired free space, my computer was working faster and Excel was no longer crashing. Huzzah!

I coded and coded and coded some more. I expect to be done within a week. Woot again. I will be re-commencing the barrage of emails to my thesis chair to see what edits I need to make and when I can defend my F-ing thesis proposal. I want to have the whole thesis done by May so I can graduate in June and BE DONE with j-school. I also want to be officially done with my thesis and grad school so I can look for a real job and move out of my parents house. One year here is too long. Anything past that is just uber depressing and a blow to what self-esteen I have managed to maintain.

I will try and get more coding done tomorrow, as I don’t have to be to work until 6. The next three days of work are going to suck… 6-9:15 tomorrow night, 9:45-4 Thursday morning, and then 8pm-4am on Friday night. F-ing inventory. I think the last time I stayed up until 4 am was at after-prom. In 2002.

Besides bonkers amounts of coding, I did manage to take an hour to play Wii Dance on Broadway with my mom. She is still outscoring me left and right (though I did get the high scorel on “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”). One of these days, I’m gonna just have to practice when she’s not around so I can win. Yeah, I’m that competitive.

I also watched a couple reruns of HIMYM (I’m still dealing with last night’s episode… I guess I missed the countdown aspect of it. But to me, that trivializes the severity final scene. Why one earth would they count down to that? That wasn’t New Years. That was the most sad I’ve been watching television in years. YEARS.

Tonight I watched the rerun of Glee – it was “Audition,” the Season 2 premiere. Or, as I think of it now, B.B. or “Before Blaine“. Kurt & Blaine are the center of that show now, for me, so what happened this season before “Never Been Kissed” is all B.B.

I liked “Audition” as it had a good mix of songs. I like Charice’s voice, so rewatching her sing “Telephone” and “Listen” is always nice. And even though A Chorus Line is not my favorite musical by far, I do love “What I Did For Love” a lot. I belt that out in my car on occasion when I’m listening to this season’s Glee-mix.

This might sound dumb, but thanks to Glee, I am a much better singer than I used to be. I mean, I was in choir in high school (though there is a funny story behind that… I actually didn’t make it after my audition, but somehow on the first day of school the next year, I was scheduled to be in Women’s Chorus. What?! So, I was in that for a few years and it was FUN!), but I never thought I sang well. I’m still not the best singer ever, but I have noticed that my range has increased by a lot, and I am better able to harmonize. Though this is not a skill one needs on an every day basis, I’m still glad I am getting better at it. But, the range thing is what is best of all. I used to have to really reach for some of those notes, but now they come without much of a stretch at all. Once only an Alto II, I now can sing Rachel Berry’s part on “Faithfully“… high notes and all. Woot.

I can’t wait for Glee to start back up with new episodes in February. I am very much looking forward to the episode after the Superbowl, but even more so the episode on February 8th. The Warblers/Kurt/Blaine are going to sing Maroon 5’s “Misery”. Can’t. Wait. (I ❤ Maroon 5. Well, mostly I ❤ Adam Levine, but on a whole I ❤ Maroon 5 too 🙂 )

While I wait for new Glee episodes, I have been keeping busy by watching and rewatching A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel. I can’t get enough of them! Also, I got hooked on Dalton. Now, I never was much for fan fiction (even though I totally wrote a huge paper about fan fiction and copyright infringement for my Internet Ethics class in grad school), but Dalton is beyond entertaining. It’s totally a soap opera, but it fulfills a Glee void until there are new episodes. And I love all the Alice in Wonderland references… brilliant 🙂 It’s just some mindless entertainment, and though I am slightly embarrassed by how much I am loving it, I get a kick out of it just the same. Go ahead and judge, but it’s nice to have something to read that is entirely just for fun and has nothing to do with my thesis stuff. Yay team

Well, off to bed…

Have a good one 🙂

 

King’s Speeches and Hans Gruber … what a day

Dear reader,

I woke up early this morning (okay, 7:45… but it felt early) so I could get myself ready for the 10:05 screening of The King’s Speech. Soooooo glad I chose to see this movie today, as it totally was exactly what I needed.

I was pleasantly surprised that the theater was about 1/3 full with people by time the movie started. I think I was the youngest person in the room (which used to be par for the course, but now that I’m an old woman of 27 that happens less and less these days), but I was laughing alongside everyone else. Perhaps I’m an old soul? Or maybe it’s that I can appreciate British humor. I do tend to laugh a few fractions of a seconds before everyone else in the room. This is also par for the course… I don’t know why, but I always seem to be the first one to audibly chuckle whilst at the cinema.

The King’s Speech was fantastic. Really, really, really great ensemble. Colin Firth will likely win the Oscar this year for Best Actor (not only did he give an amazingly heartfelt and quite emotional performance, but an Oscar win this year will help make up for his loss last year to Jeff Bridges. Did you see Firth in A Single Man? Do yourself a favor. Watch it. If you are not moved, then you have no soul. That scene on the chair alone is award-worthy.). Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter were also brilliant. I was unaware that Guy Pearce was in the movie and was super happy to see him as David. I miss Guy Pearce being in good movies. I do need to rewatch Memento and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert sometime soon.

The movie was much funnier than I thought it was going to be. The banter between Firth and Rush was delightful. And that scene where Firth’s character just starts swearing was a hoot. Any monologue by a proper British man, nay royalty, that ends with the word “tits” is bound to be memorable.

I hope to see The Fighter and True Grit within the next two weeks. Yay cinema.

When I got home from the movie, I had lunch and then played some Wii games with my mom. We bowled and then did a bunch of the Dance on Broadway dances. I can’t understand how my mom manages to outscore me in just about every dance. I’m doing the arm movements at the same time/speed as my character. But I don’t seem to get the points…

After an hour of tapping, hoofing and Time Warping, I busted out my Glee Wii Karaoke. I finally discovered what the Shooting Stars portion of the game is… while you sing, you use the Wii-mote to shoot the gold stars that are bouncing across your screen. What the what?! I also sang “Sweet Caroline” about 10+ times on various modes – the Quick Play and Shooting Stars. I always get 100% on that song, so I figured I would sing it on Easy, Medium, and Hard for both the Quick Play and Shooting Stars to see if you unlock something or whatnot if you get perfect scores on the songs. You don’t seem to get anything, but this is how I found out about shooting those gold stars… I noticed a blue star with three zeros under it. And then when you moved the Wii-mote, the blue star moved. And then I figured out about the shooting. Most interesting. It seems though, that when you do the shooting stars game, you really need to know the song (and pitches) by heart because you’re too busy concentrating on shooting the gold stars to even look at the words or pitch bar. So, I shot 202 stars while singing “Sweet Caroline” on Medium. Woot.

After that, I went to my room to code for awhile. I am on 1979, so I’m 50+ years in!! Woot 🙂 I work until 2 tomorrow, so I will code some more tomorrow afternoon. It’s going much better as I am more familiar with the movies and people from this era as opposed to some of the earlier years.

After dinner, my dad and I watched Die Hard. God, I love Bruce Willis. He’s such a great action/comedy actor. I’ve seen most of his movies and would be more than fine watching them over and over again. He’s one of my favorite action stars and I’d even watch his crappy movies over and over again (I think I’ve seen Hudson Hawk two or three times in my day…). Also, Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber is one of the best “bad guy” performances ever. Rickman’s voice is so money. And his delivery of his lines is amazing, as per usual. (See also: Dogma and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, among others).

I did get tired toward the end of the flick, so I fell asleep for a few minutes. But, it’s not like I haven’t seen Die Hard before, and it’s not like I’ll never see it again 🙂 I think my dad and I will watch Die Harder and Die Hard with a Vengeance sometime this week. Yay!

Well, off to bed… gotta work from 9:45-2 tomorrow. Then more coding. Yay team

Have a good one!

 

Happy 2011!

It’s 2011! What the what?!

Since I live in the Central Time Zone, I got to see the ball drop twice last night (at 11 and 12, my time). Best part about last night’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve? NKOTBSB, of course 🙂 Oh my goodness, I need to see them in concert. If I were to attend their show, I would likely be lizzing throughout the entire concert. I was laughing so hard I almost choked while watching them perform last night. It’s like all my favorite guilty pleasure songs wrapped up into one mega medley of boy band amazingness. My hearth doth explode.

New Year’s Eve was actually pretty fun. My parents had 2 couples over last night. I had met one of the people on several occasions, but the first couple to arrive were movie lovers! So much so that they’ve attended Sundance the past 20+ years. It was AWESOME talking movies with them. The husband even suggested we each list 5 movies for each other to see, so I now have a list of movies I need to watch in the next few weeks. I hope some of them are on Netflix. I got him 2 of my DVDs to borrow that I had put on my list for him. We had some really good conversations – I’m always interested to hear someone else’s movie-going preferences and what his/her favorite movies/genres are. I also really appreciated the generation gap(s) between me and the couple I was conversing with. I was able to keep up with most of the conversation and it was nice to hear positive feedback about my thesis topic from someone who was not part of my schooling. (After a year of academics not really being behind what I was writing about/wanting to write about – as in entertainment journalism – it was refreshing to have two professional adults really listen to what I was saying and agreeing that what I was interested in is a valid and important entity. Yay team.)

So, New Years Eve was way more fun that I thought it was going to be, so that was a nice way to end 2010 and start 2011.

I had to work today, and that wasn’t fun. I got in a bit of a bad mood because I was dehydrated, was in need of help and a break, and was beyond busy and stuck by myself in our busy area for a lot of the day. And I am pretty sure my manager dislikes me more and more with each passing day. I had to ask her for help opening a stock room because I couldn’t get the combination right on the door (even though I totally entered in what it was actually, but the door wouldn’t open). Then while I was on my break, she asked me if I wanted any extra hours today. I said, “No, thank you.” And she looked at me, then walked off and said loudly over her headset to the STORE MANAGER, “Katie has other plans and will NOT be staying any extra hours today.” And then I know she saw me with my water bottle on several occasions today (which we’re not supposed to have in our area. But it’s criminal to not let us have water… as our area is the same as walking in a desert for days on end.). So, I’m pretty sure she hates me. I keep thinking she’s going to fire me (for the record, I have never had a problem with any prior bosses, nor have I ever been fired from anywhere). Especially because I made a return today that only after the fact I found out I wasn’t supposed to do. Whoops 😦 I’m sorry, but I was super busy, had no opportunity to call a manager, and I had to keep the line moving. And then, a colleague was telling me that what I did was probably wrong, and I said, “I kinda don’t care.” I was just really defeated at that point and was about ready to collapse or just go off on the next person who got in my face. It’s not like I’m breaking the rules on purpose. I just made a mistake. So, I’m sure it’ll get back to my manager that I said I didn’t care. If that happens, I will apologize. I don’t want to get fired, but I also don’t want to be so stressed out all the time. I’m not curing cancer, I’m selling overpriced goods to ladies with Coach purses.

(End rant, I swear)

I got home from work and my mama had made a delicious dinner. Then my dad and I watched The Expendables. It had some decent action scenes, but I don’t need to see it again.

I plan on going to the movies tomorrow morning… I hope to see The Fighter, The King’s Speech or True Grit. I’m not setting an alarm or anything, so if I’m up, I’ll go. But I need some sleep as I am tired.

Also tomorrow I hope to get some more coding done. I’ve been working hard at it the past few days, though I still have 37 years to go. It’s laborious, but I’m still loving what I’m doing, so that’s good. I have an excellent mix of music that I’m listening to, so that helps 🙂

Have a good one!!

Happy New Year 🙂