hahahaha

You guys are hilarious.

I have saved a few of your SkyMall suggestions as potentials for buying, but I wanted to highlight my list of the top three silly/ridiculous things you suggested that I am NOT buying for my fiesta mission:

1. The NeckPro Traction Device

2. The Meerkat Gang Sculpture


3. Brightfeet Lighted Slippers

Hahahaha. Thanks for the laughs. xD

Very Memorable.

There is really nothing better than being appreciated.


I was having one of those really crummy under appreciated-feeling days at work, but then during will call, toward the end of my shift, this older guy comes up to me and asks, "Did you play that singing bird?"

Since I work at a professional theatre (in the box office), I assumed he was confusing me with an actor he'd seen in a show here in the past. I hastened to shake my head and say "No, I just work in the ticket office. I don't perform."

He furrowed his brow at me and said, "No, I'm sure it was you. What was her name, Gertrude?"

I paused. I did play Gertrude. "At Liberty high school?"

"Yeah! It was you!"

"That was three years ago, sir."

"You were very memorable."


Anyway, it made me all smiley, despite my mildly crummy day. Sometimes I miss acting.
Now I am going to amuse myself for the rest of my shift by reading your SkyMall suggestions. xD

Need your help. :)

I am requesting the assistance of the people who read my blog!


My next mission for the Fiesta Movement, as I mentioned before, is to pick a few items from SkyMall and review them in a video. I have been looking through the website, but I have been struggling to find items that strike a good balance between funny/interesting/useful/something I will want to own after the video is filmed and whatnot. I want the items to be fun, and something that would make an interesting video. And not something stupid like a large inflatable crocodile or something.


Sooo, I am going to give you the link to the online store, and if any of you want to peruse SkyMall for me to help find items you think are fun or want to see me use and review in a video, I would LOVE to read your suggestions in the comments. I am going to be ordering the items probably this weekend or early next week.

I need at least three items and they cant exceed $500 in price.


I just thought it would be fun to let you guys be involved in the item selection for this mission.

The SkyMall online store is here.

Thank you!

LeakyCon Part 4

Sunday:
This was definitely one of those "please don't make me get up, I'd rather melt into the covers forever and never walk again" type mornings, but I think sometime around 10ish I finally dragged my achey sick body from the covers and showered. For some reason we all seemed to think the goodbye feast went until noon, so we hurried downstairs only to find we'd missed it anyway. So bagels and fruit down the street it was. I'm pretty sure Hank accompanied us as well.

Even though the conference technically ended that morning, there was still plenty of fun things to do. In the afternoon there were two shows; a WizHop show at the Middle East and Hank's acoustic show at the Lilypad. The WizHop show would have been really fun(Joe Degeorge singing as Dumbledore, the infamous Remus and the Lupins, Big Whompy...), but I know that Hank appreciated having us in his audience a whole lot so of course we chose to go with him. Also he offered to drive us. xD

Hank had to go back to the airport to get a rental car, so we waited for him in the lobby. We waited for him in the lobby for a long time. We waited for him in the lobby so long we began to think he'd forgotten about us. We waited for him in the lobby so long Eia and I both fell asleep on thr floor while apparently older people smiled and smirked at us as they passed.

Finally I was woken up to Hank standing over me and giggling and still groggy, they told me a story about how Hank accidentally saved my name with Melissa Anelli's phone number, spent half an hour texting with her about some restaurant she was at, and went THERE to pick us up because he thought it was me. Oops. Haha.

Then we embarked on what I am calling the Great Bsoton Adventure, because Hank remembered parking his car in a parking garage but he didnt remember WHICH parking garage. This took a fair amount of time as well. I should also add that my cold was significantly worse on this day and I spent a good portion of the day dragging my body places and feeling a bit like I was in a daze. Hank left us on the corner of some street while he ran off, frantic, and finally about twenty minutes later picked us up in the rental car. THEN we couldn't find the venue, but luckily I just got a new phone with GPS so I tested it out and it managed to get us there only a few minutes late.

Hank's show was fun... I really appreciated the pure joy on his face, knowing he probably never dreamed of playing in front of an adoring audience like he gets to now. Many of the Leaky staffers showed up and even Paul/Joe and Emily stopped by after the WIzHop show was finished. I was really proud of my fandom for being so supportive. Hank staged two encores and played a pretty good mix of songs, including both the boy and girl parts on the Edward Cullen song. It was nice for me too, because we all sat in chairs and there was no jumping or dancing. my body appreciated it.

Afterwards we got ice cream, got lost again on the way home because nobody was listening to my GPS (it ended up being right, go figure, satellites are smarter than a car full of internet nerds) and pretty much went straight to the Venom Show. Lena played a fun set with a full band, Erin was fun as always, and Ministry made the floor shake. I told them that there was NO possible way I could sing with them (my voice was completely shot at this point) but I realized that everyone knows the words and would be singing them too loud to hear me anyway, so I jumped onstage and mouthed Snape vs. Snape and no one seemed to notice or care. Hahaha.

Leaky had one last party in their room for the people who hadn't gone home yet, and my night took a turn for the worse. I think the fact that I had been ignoring my body all weekend had finally come crashing down on me... my body was like "No, you listen to ME." I started getting chills and was dizzy and literally couldn't talk without it hurting a lot... I was really upset because it was the last few hours I had with my friends and I couldn't hang out or chat or anything. I ended up sitting in a corner with Alex. :( I appreciate him.

I guess I did talk with Toby and Melissa for awhile at the very end, but that was after at least two hours of feeling really, really sick. So I cant really complain. I sounded like a dying frog, my eyes were red, and I was shivery and sweaty at the same time, but I did get one last good conversation with two people I adore at 3 in the morning. Then Alex Carpenter FORCED everyone to have one last dance party to some techno remix of Total Eclipse of the Heart, so I kind of mouthed the words and did a little knee bobbing thing to keep from passing out.

Monday:
Our flight left at 6 AM, so we needed to take a cab to the airport around 3:30. We said our goodbyes, took a cab to the airport, cursed Burger King for not being open, let Alex delight in the abandoned wheelchair that was just sitting in the food area, went through security, and then I fell asleep across four chairs. The whole trip home after this was a miserable, uncomfortable blur of trying to sleep, not knowing whether we had or had not already stopped in Milwaukee (we didnt actually have to get off the plane, it just stopped there), and completely missing the fact that our flight was delayed about two hours and half the people got off to find other flights so they wouldn't miss their connections (I slept through all of this).

AirTran gave us all free round trip tickets for our trouble (What? Trouble? The only trouble I had was that I woke up thinking we were almost home and then the pilot said "If you look out on your left you may see Niagra Falls" and I flipped out because Niagra falls is on the EAST SIDE OF THE CONTINENT). I have never heard of an airline doing this for a minor delay, but hey. I am definitely, definitely not complaining. Finally we got home, they lost Colin's luggage, Colin's mom picked us up and brought us Subway sandwiches (I love her) and now here I am lying on my incredibly wonderful rainbow comfortered bed and planning to sleep the day away.

LeakyCon. See you in 2011.

LeakyCon Part 3

Saturday:
This was the morning in which I briefly considered throwing myself out the hotel window rather than going to do the things I was supposed to do, which is probably why the window was only able to open about four inches. Clearly they have had this problem before.

I showered, filled my pockets with cough drops, and made my way down to the ballroom for the Fair Fortune rehearsal. I know this probably doesn't sound very early out of context, but Lena had us meeting at NINE AM. At a conference where getting to bed by 2 AM is considered wimpily early, this is a really unideal time to meet, not to mention sing an opera. Anyway, we all donned our traveling cloaks and tiaras, grabbed our wireless mics and donuts, and went through the entire song once to make sure we still had it (we last performed it a little over two months ago in Florida). The rehearsal was a little rocky but we were out of time as they opened the doors and started letting people in. Since the show was at 10 AM, we weren't expecting many people. Mostly the friends we'd bullied into coming and a handful of early risers who wanted to support wizard rock. What came through the door was absolutely not that.

The room (a ballroom O.o) was PACKED FULL. People were standing at the back. We were expecting 20-30... I just asked Alex how many people he thought were there and he told me he thought it was at least 250. Lena was glowing. Erin, Jason, Christie and I were... well, I dunno what we were. Some combination of nervous and excited. But the music started and I can't explain how or why but the entire performance went very nearly FLAWLESSLY. I have never been more proud of myself or my friends for something we've accomplished on stage, and Lena kept hugging me at our standing ovation... it was so, so good. And even though I was sick and rapidly losing my voice, it held out at least for the entire performance. Even the scary entrances I practiced a million times and never got right just happened (by luck, really) to work perfectly. Lauren was red eyed when she hugged me. Alex looked so proud. John and Hank were in the audience and I am just so happy this happened.

Afterwards we saw the trailer for "Finding Hogwarts" which is a new documentary by John, Bre, Rita and co. which I think looks really great. Then I cant exactly remember what we did but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of food or resting. At some point we went to the Vendor room with Lauren and I heavily considered buying a metal "Knockturn Alley" street sign for my bedroom. I held off. Maybe at Azkatraz.

There was some drama with the afternoon wizard rock show as it got moved from one room to another a few times, but it didn't really affect me since I wasn't playing. It was delayed about 2 hours but everyone was really good spirited about it. We can pack up and re-setup merch like pros anyway. The show ended up being really great, too. RiddleTM are just lovely to watch (Alex and I sat in an upper balcony by ourselves for this performance; it was mellow and fun). The Mudbloods played next and Eia and I tried once again to get our Zombie dance to catch on. One day, it will be a phenomenon. We'll never stop living the dream. The Moaning Myrtles were third; fun as ever, and the Remus Lupins closed the Wizard Rock portion of LeakyCon. I'm sure this is being talked about everywhere, but I got to watch in utter awe/horror as Alex Carpenter kissed his favorite white guitar, lit it on FIRE, and smashed it to pieces on the stage before we all ran onstage to sing the ba-ba-baa's in Looking for Trouble. Everyone was totally mind blown. Brian Malfoy had his arm around me for the entirety of us being on stage. I think he's probably the only person who gets MORE emotional than I do at these things. I love that guy.

We had barely any time to get ready for the ball at this point, so we all threw on our nice clothes (everyone always looks so good! I love it!), we did a little pre-partying in the hotel room before getting to the ball and dancing our feet off for two straight hours. You know how usually at dances you just shake it like crazy during all the good songs and then you sit and rest during the bad or okay songs? THERE WERE NO BAD OR OKAY SONGS. It was just an entire playlist of melt your face off favorite dancing songs and so there was no rest for the weary. I spent a good portion of the night dancing with Alex and relishing in being a tease because I was very aware that my dress looked very nice on me and we have to share a room with our friends (>:D) and the rest of the night SHATTERING what was left of my poor voice as we jumping and swayed to songs like "Dont Stop Believing", "You Can't Stop the Beat" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart", the latter of which they played two times back to back in honor of it being Melissa's favorite song or something. Alex and I spent a lot of the night as well being in awe at just how crazy Hank and Maureen are. I want to be Maureen when I grow up.

Lots of really epic amazing dancy things happened at the dance but to recount them would be silly. Just know that there was much smiling, sweating, and fun to be had.

After the dance we had another party in the Leaky suite, and this was probably one of my favorite parts of the Con. I don't even remember how this came about, but there was a point where Maureen wanted to make a fort, so we grabbed a bunch of chairs and told Melissa we needed a blanket. Melissa got right on that, coming back within minutes with a standard white hotel sheet. We draped it over the chairs, allowed 6-7 people inside, and Maureen then announced the password would be "Fuck Off". She seemed very serious about the exclusivity of this fort. I think we also took turns holding it up with chopsticks too, as the ceiling was a bit saggy. We stayed in this fort a bit longer than a bunch of sweaty, tired, partying people should, but come on. It was a fort in the middle of a Harry Potter conference wizard rock show afterparty. It doesn't get better than that.

This was the point in which I told Maureen that I want to be her when I grow up because she, and I quote, "Writes girly books and is just incredibly weird." I HAVE HIGH ASPIRATIONS, OKAY?

The rest of the night was just general hotel room party silliness, ending in a huge pile of people on the bed Maureen was supposed to be sleeping on and then a conversation with Alex and Melissa and ... someone else ... and I know the conversation was a good one but I just can't seem to remember what it was about. Best night ever. I think Alex and I stumbled off back to our hotel room around 4 in the morning. Again, this was considered "early". Ha.

Part 4 will be the conclusion. ^^

LeakyCon Part 2

Friday:
I have no idea where this even came from, but I woke up Friday morning with the throat sorest, nose runniest, balloon headedest cold ever. Well okay, I'm pretty sure I caught it from Alex, but I have never had a cold hit me that quickly with no warning ever before. I was so, so disappointed but my plan was to ignore it and pretend I didn't actually have a cold at all, which worked for a few days at least.

Anyway I woke up on Friday to a pounding head and a frantic text messages from Lauren saying "We're doing a youth Wizard Rock panel right now and hardly any bands showed up - can you come?"
So of course I showered in record time, threw on clothes, downed a cough drop, grabbed Colin because he was the only one awake, and rushed down to the Mezzanine level to join in. I'll admit it - I rarely make it to much programming. There are always so many other fun things to do or people to hang out (or sleep to be had ^^), but I am really glad I made it to this one. We sat in a row in front of a room of about 20 or so, and the bands who did show up were Lauren and Nina, Adam from the Mudbloods, Stacy from Swish and Flick, and Victoria and Georgia from RiddleTM. Basically the people in the audience (mostly younger, so perhaps not around for the bulk of the evolution of wizard rock) asked us questions about how we started our bands, how we deal with negative feedback, what our favorite books were, and how our 7th book experience was both in playing shows and actually readng the book. It was really fun to discuss this with young people, knowing they're either just really curious or considering trying to jump in it themselves.
It was also fun to have Colin there, as this was his first conference and it was nice for him to a have a bit of deep, heart to heart wizard rock discussion. :)

After this we met up with Eia and Liz and together with Colin, Lauren and Nina we went out for lunch at this cute Italian place where I had the most fantastic meatball sandwich of all time.

Shortly after that went back to the room and dragged Alex out of bed because I knew he'd want to go to the Nerdfighter Nosh even if he'd had his legs blown off in the war. We found out he loves wheelchairs anyway, so I dont think that would be so bad actually.
Anyway, we got to the Nosh and grabbed some seats, some brownies, and Alex and I ran off to find Maureen Johnson who had emailed me the night before to inform me that what started as a joke to crash Leaky had somehow in a very short time turned into her realizing she could actually attend, so there she was. Direct train from NYC. We put our hands over her eyes from behind and she just froze up. "I don't know what to do," she said in her crazy Maureen voice. "Do I stop eating? Do I carry on?"
I had never met Maureen before and was really excited to get to hang with her in Boston. She sat with us for the Nosh while we watched John and Hank be nerds onstage. They were talking a bit about the big events in nerdfighter history, and then Hank played a medly of some notable Project For Awesome videos. There were ones to be expected like Julia Nunes and Whatthebuck, but then at the end, they finished the video with clips from the video that Liz and I made! I was surprised and a little embarrassed... I'm used to seeing my videos in a little 600x400 screen... a giant projector is a bit much for me. :)

After the nerdfighter thing we walked out of the ballroom and almost immediately walked right into Sam. We weren't expecting to just run into each other that way, so we had a big loud obnoxious Seattle house reunion right there in the hall. We hadn't seen each other since she left in December, so it had been awhile. We went to Starbucks (for old time's sake or something) and then found this little foodcourt where pretty much everyone got orange chicken (how can you not like orange chicken?) and rushed back to the hotel for the announcing of the Wickrocklopedia Awards. It was kind of fun, because usually they just post them online, but instead all the bands were squeezed into this long narrow room together, making it feel like some kind of big awards ceremony or something. Well, except for the fact that I was sitting on the floor in the back eating chinese food with wooden chopsticks.
Ministry of Magic and RiddleTM kind of swept the awards, but I recieved best Collab song with Ministry for "Goodbye Privet Drive" and Eia won best exotic instrument with her tap shoes (YES) so we walked away pretty satisfied. Losing best female vocals to Victoria and Georgia is something I can deal with. ^^

The wizard rock show this night was Rock Night, and I think this is going to have to go on my permanent list of best wizard rock shows ever. High on the list, anyway. The people who played this night were Tonks and the Aurors, Gred and Forge, The Whomping Willows, and Harry and the Potters. Steph and Jarrod (the first two bands) are super talented and fun, and any show with Matt playing with a full band and then ending with Harry and the Potters is... just the way wizard rock is supposed to be. It was wonderful.

Eia and I danced to "Ginny Gets Around" by Gred and Forge (which is actually featured in John's new video) and we just ran around and danced and had a general awesome time. I mostly enjoyed this night so much because I got to experience it through Alex and Colin's eyes. This was not only their first con, but Alex's first wizard rock experience ever, and though Colin has seen us play in Seattle, he's never seen Harry and the Potters. So while I've seen Matt, Paul, and Joe perform tons of times, but it was really, really fun watching them knowing that people I'd brought along to share this part of my life with were having an experience I'd maybe even started to take for granted.

Matt had Lauren onstage for all sorts of cute collaby songs that made me want to go home and write more music with Alex, which we've already started talking about and planning out. Harry and the Potters inspired many emotional huggy cirles with the Weapon (naturally) and then had everyone bandwise come onstage for the last song which was "Dumbledore", and John, Hank and Katherine came onstage in wizard jump suits and fish masks and I couldn't stop laughing at how wonderful my life is and how all the things I love to do were literally meshing together in front of my very eyes on that stage.

It was a very, very great day, but when we got back to the hotel I felt completely destroyed because for the first time in the whole day I remembered I was sick and it all came crashing down on me. Everyone else went out to party for a bit, but I knew I had to wake up early for a Fair Fortune rehearsal before our performance, so I went to bed "early" (if you can call 2 AM early).

Part 3 coming later!

LeakyCon Part 1

LeakyCon. Where to even start.
I suppose I'll take the mildly cliché and somewhat expected chronological route.

Wednesday:
We left Seattle at 10:23 PM, already knowing we were going to hate being alive by the time we got to Boston the next morning, having to play a show that same (Thursday) evening having only gotten horribly plane-sleep and a breakfast bagel at 2 AM in Atlanta. (Speaking of things that are bad - who connects in ATLANTA to go to Boston from Seattle? Yes, it makes perfect sense to stop in the deep south when flying from the Northwest to the Northeast.)
Anyway we got to the Boston airport relatively unscathed, and Alex and I even managed to find a way in which two people can utilize two airplane seats for sleeping without feeling entirely like you're a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

Thursday:
We arrived in Boston at 10 AM-ish, got our bags, were handsomely overcharged for our SUV taxi ($50! We went like 5 miles! I hate Boston!) and finally got to the hotel. It was right in the heart of the city, as Con hotels usually are, which means lots of overpriced food and walking long distances to find cheap chinese food and Starbucks for the addicts like Eia. Expensive weekends, wooo.

We dropped all our merch and things off in the castle (I feel like I gained a few cool points in life by now being able to say "Oh yeah, I've played a rock show in a Castle. Where have you played?"), chatted with Melissa and some other Leaky staffers, and then went to check in to our room. It was SO NICE to not cram 9+ people into our room like last year. We had four people, four beds; it was a beautiful thing. Well, until my good friend Colin got there and we agreed to let Sam crash on our floor as well. But that didn't affect my life in any negative way and I got a bed each night that didn't already have six other people in it. Thank you, Leaky.
We had the welcome feast (another reason Leaky is awesome - we didn't have to pay EXTRA to go to this). There were some speeches, and adorable group of girls did a Harry Potter themed a capella medly, and then it was time to start the wizard rock show that night - Evil Night.
The other bands were awesome; we played with Swish and Flick (funniest lyrics ever), Justin Finch Fletchly and the Sugar Quills (love him) and Draco and the Malfoys (probably the reason Brittany and I started actually trying to be a real band back in 2005, and still a huge inspiration to me).

Our show went really well. I'll admit - I was nervous. I have been doing Wizard Rock a long time, and in my 5 years of being a part of the Parselmouths, I have never played a show without Brittany. Our band is successful because of our silly anecdotes, our cute girly stage presence, and Brittany's outrageous outfits and antics. I know what Eia and Alex and I have made together in the last few months is really good and strong, but the bottom line is it's different. Instead of just replacing Brittany, we gave the band a makeover. I was afraid people would just be disappointed they didn't get to see the band they're used to.

BUT - and this is why I re-fall in love with this fandom/community every time I go to one of these events - the amount of times I heard someone say "You guys were AWESOME, I loved your stage presense and your little witty banter and what you've done with the band".... it was just amazing. Fans and other bands alike. Lauren hugged me, Nina said some really nice things - and Brian made sure to give me his vote of approval, and like I mentioned before, Brian Malfoy means a lot to me and I put a lot of stock in his opinion.
So basically, this night made me really happy. I got to see a lot of people I really like, the community accepted the new direction of the band with open arms (I should have known) and we did pretty well with merch.

Also John Green was in the audience and I am really glad he got to see me play live. Especially with Alex. We snuck up behind him later while he was filming something and he freaked out, being so happy to see us. Then he turned serious and told Alex and I that if he is going to offictae our wedding (you know, that one that is only canonical within the basis of the song "Mrs. Nerimon") that every weekend of his is booked for the next five years so he's sorry but that's how long we have to wait. Hahah. I love John.

That night I should have gone to bed early(ish) because the whole weekend was so jam packed, but I HAD to go check out the party in the Leaky suite... and ended up having a deep Lost thoerizing discussion out on the roof with all the regulars (Alex Carpenter, most of Ministry, Jace and Ed, Eia, etc.) I feel like this is what we do now instead of talking about what's going to happen in the final HP books. We talk about Lost. And Colin learned a very valuable lesson this weekend which is - NEVER go to an HP event without being completely caught up on Lost. Big mistake.

I stumbled into bed around 2 or so this night (next to Alex who had been asleep for awhile at this point as he was recovering from a cold and his first big wizard rock show that just happened to be one of the biggest ones I've ever played so I can only imagine how it felt for him). Poor guy. He did amazingly though and I'm so proud of his ability to learn our entire set in that short amount of time.

Also, here's a bit of foreshadowing -- when I was looking at Alex and feeling sorry for him, I was relishing in how glad I was that I wasn't sick, because feeling yucky like that at a conference, especially one I have been looking forward to for so long like this one, would just be terrible. Then I fell asleep.


Part 2 to follow. ^^

skymall

So yesterday I submitted my first Fiesta mission video to YouTube and to Ford, and everyone seemed to love it, which I was glad about. I was a little nervous about submitting it on both ends - I was nervous to submit it to Ford because I really didn't talk about the car that much as the video was focused mainly on the waterfall mission, and I wasn't exactly sure what they were looking for in these mission videos. And on the flip side, I was still a little nervous about posting it on my channel because I have that minute fear that my subscribers will revolt and declare me a sell-out since I am working with Ford.

But the Fiesta Movement is so different than that. They're not paying me to just name drop their company, at all. I barely even mentioned Ford in my Waterfall Mission 1, and my personal mission control contact loved my video, my regional PR person thought it was great and it sent it to all the other agents in my area - so clearly Ford is not looking for simply free advertising. They just want to give me fun video missions to make my visual adventures exciting, and to do my thing as I normally would with my subscribers on my channel - albeit with a SWEET car and a bit of monetary compensation to make up for the cost of the said missions. In the mean time, people see that Ford is a cool company doing cool things. That's basically what's in it for them.

And my subscribers loved my video. That was such a relief. It was probably because Alex spends half the video doing cute things, but we'll pretend it's me they adore for the sake of the blog post. xD

Anyway, that was my little two cents on the Fiesta movement. I am enjoying my involvement in it, missions are fun, and everyone I have met and work with (all the people at mission control, the PR people, etc.) are all really cool people.


And now I am going to brag for a moment about my second mission.
I got my first mission done relatively early so I got to pick from a pretty extensive list of "technology" missions. There were all sorts of nerdtastic things I could have chosen but my eyes fell upon something that was TOO AMAZING to pass up.

My mission is to buy THREE items from SKYMALL, the amazing magazine that you can read on any airplane that is just FULL of weird/useless/bizarre items. Self refilling cat water bowls, seven story rotating shoeracks, you name it - SkyMall has it. Anyway, my mission is to purchase three items from this magazine, use the crap out of them, and then review them in a video on my channel.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE READ SKYMALL AND DREAMED OF BUYING ALL THAT WEIRDO COOL JUNK BUT CANT BECAUSE IT'S SO EXPENSIVE?

This is every frequent-flier's dream come TRUE.

And lucky me - I'm going on a plane TOMORROW. It's shopping time.

pre-leaky things

It's starting to get closer and closer to LeakyCon departure time and that thing has happened again where I can't believe I am going to another HP conference and so I just don't believe it.

But I AM leaving, tomorrow, and I haven't even packed!

I have all our new merch in piles and boxes upon boxes of cds teetering precariously near my suitcase, a few definite outfits like my ball dress and what I plan to wear for the show strewn about, but other than that I am not prepared.


Today I made good use of my theory class time by making a list of things I need to do before we go to the airport tomorrow night and since I've been home I have been crossing things off one by one. I looked back at the list after "adding any important conference people's phone numbers into my phone" and "figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel" and there added in at the bottom was "cuddle boyf" in Alex's handwriting. xD

Also, my good friend Colin from high school is meeting us in Boston and attending Leaky with us (which I am very excited about) so I also have on the list "touch base with Colin". Alex was reading over what I needed to do and he nearly choked and said "touch Colin's WHAT?"

Haha. Just a bit of my day.

Leaky in just under 48 hours!

10 year old Kristina

I found my diary from elementary school and I have been reading it out to Alex because I find 10 year old Kristina very amusing. I don't think he cares much, so I going to put some highlites in here instead of continuing to read them out to him.


May 22nd, 1998
"My best friend is Amanda. She is kind of a teacher's pet and her singing is fake and she thinks she's popular and always gets her way, but she is still my best friend."

May 23rd, 1998
"Me and Amanda are not BEST friends anymore. Just regular friends. Anyway I am going camping this weekend."

June 28th, 1998
"I am camping again. Yesterday was my half birthday. We went clam digging and I found a hermit crab. My Dad put the hermit crab in with Nick's starfish and the starfish took the crab's shell so he is going around the bucket naked."

June 28th, 1998
"My Dad and I found an amphitheater here. I sang STOP by the Spice Girls and he recited the Gettysburg address for me. Oh and I walked my brother to the bathroom and he wanted me to wipe his butt!! I left him there and got my mom to do it."

Jan 7th, 1999
"I left school early yesterday. Yea! I went to the eye doctor. Boo! They had to put stupid 2 eye drops in each eye. Ew, I hate eye drops. She missed one time. The drop went in my mouth, making my mouth numb. Yeeh!!"

July 5th, 1999
"My dream boy would be: At least 5'1" (I'm 5'2") I want to be able to look him in the eye! I want him to have blond wavy hair. Short, but long. It would be nice if he could have blue eyes. I also hope he wont be too shy, I hope he's a great dancer, and most of all - a great KISSER."
(note: I told Alex the 5'1" criteria needs to be updated as I have grown 8 inches since I wrote this entry, also that 11 year old Kristina will be judging his dancing.)

And the last entry in this little diary (complete with one of those built in locks^^):

July 7th, 2000
"Gosh. I don't know what to write. It would take me HOURS to write everything everything about me. I am soooooooo different. All new friends, looks, even handwriting kind of. So, I guess I'll just leave it at that. Bye."


...and then there are about 200 blank pages. I was such a snarky child.

job stuff

Why I hate my job:

Me: "Alright, your tickets are going to be in the center of the 12th row."
Patron: "Where are those, about?"
Me: ".....Uh. In the center, about 12 rows back?"
Patron: "Okay! Thank you!"



Sigh.

Edit: I also just asked someone if they wanted their tickets mailed to them... and they bought tickets for tonight. xD xD my liiiife.

the usual

It has always been my dream to walk into a restaurant and be able to just say "the usual".

In my 21 years of life, I had not yet been able to make this happen.

Today, however, I got to work a little early (I usually am) so I stopped in at Jamba juice (I usually do) and the scrawny little Asian guy was working (he usually is).

The other guy working (a tall blonde guy) asks me, "What would you like?"

To which I replied, "I'm going to have -"

"Peach Pleasure, like usual?" the Asian guy smirked at me as he cut me off.

My eyes widened and I nodded vigorously.



Success!

(Clearly I go to Jamba Juice too much. ^^)

Old People 101

I'm at work later than I usually am because I have to run the subscription table (that annoying girl in the skirt in the lobby saying "have you resubscribed for next year? Have you seen next year's season?" when all you want to do is empty your bladder and buy a cookie).
The point is that I can hear Act 1 of Showboat playing over the monitors, but my manager left her ipod on in the box office as well so I have a really strange mash-up of "Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine" and Eminem. It's an experience.


One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to sit at the window and run willcall, which means I get to pass out tickets to a crowd of primarily old people.

Being that I have worked here for 3 years now, and it is a theatre, and lots of elderly folk attend the theatre, I have found there are distinct categories of old people which I will now explain:

1. The Hearing Aid:
"Hi are you picking up your tickets?"
"What?"
"Your tickets. Are you picking them up?"
"WHAT?"
"DO YOU NEED YOUR TICKETS?"
"Honey, I'm an old woman, you're going to need to speak a bit slower."
"Do. You. Have. Tickets. At. Willcall?"
"Oh, no. I have them already. Where's the bathroom?"

2. The Grouch:
This brand of old person has seen too many things, been to too many shows, perhaps birthed too many children, and to top it all off, it all seems to be MY fault. This brand of old person scowls at your eyeshadow, turns their nose up at your pink tights, scoffs at the rock music playing softly in the box office, and can't BELIEVE I would charge her an exchange fee after she's been coming to this theatre for THIRTY-FIVE years. Sigh.

3. The Jokester:
Lots of older men, I find, particularly at 60ish or above, delight in making young people laugh. Especially girls. For instance, a man today sauntered up to the window and says, "Have you seen my wife? I always seem to lose her. She's about yay tall, has white hair, wearing a skirt..." and proceeds to point into a sea of women all matching that description, winks at me, and then immediately cracks up. Usually these men's jokes aren't particularly funny, but it's all in the delivery. I know he came over SPECIFICALLY to be funny in front of a young girl, so I always give them a laugh. The wink is priceless, too.

4. The Flirt:
There is a certain point in a man's life where flirting with younger girls switches from creepy and unnacceptable to cute. This is again usually sometime after the 65-70 year range. A man came today to get his half-price military discount and I smiled at him before telling him he was about 15 minutes too early. He smirked at me and said "Well I could go get a cup of coffee and wait with my buddy here, or I could stay at the window and talk to a pretty lady." Again with the wink. These men seem to get themselves in trouble when they do this in front of their wives. Especially if their wives are of the Grouch variety.

Some people are great with computers. Some know everything there is to know about office supplies. Some can make a Subway sandwich like the world is ending tomorrow.

Me? I well versed in the subject of Old People.

hypotheticals

So I have this homework assignment where I have to make up a hypothetical family and write a paper about them and their lives, and then plan a food budget for them living at the poverty threshold, and see if I can actually make a balanced proper meal for this family with minimal amounts of money to do so.

I am making Alex help me with this assignment and we are taking it ENTIRELY too far.


We live in a split level home in a suburb 20 miles outside of Seattle are now the proud parents of a 16 year old girl named Olive and an 11 year old boy named Lyle. Alex is a freelance writer and musician and I work in marketing. We make collectively $19,806 a year and according to my calculations, have approximately $58 a week to spend on food for a family of four. Which isn't a lot.

I blamed this on the fact that he hadn't written an album in years and he blamed it on my shitty low end marketing job. I said "at least I HAVE a job." We then bickered over the fact that Olive is 16 and doesn't have a job, and Alex said she just sits on the computer all day, and I said she learned it from her father, and then I yelled at him for not using the lawnmower I got him for Christmas because he never leaves the house and makes poor Lyle do the mowing.

We then realized we were having our first hypothetical real life married fight and cracked up and I'm back to working on the assignment and he's doing something on his laptop. (Just like the future, me working while he goes online. Typical.)


I asked him, "Is this what it's going to be like?"

snogging

How Alex and I spend a Tuesday evening:

Me: "What do you want to do tonight?"
Alex: "Make out."
Me: *sigh* "We're not going to make out all night, Alex. What else should we do?"
Alex: "We could kiss."
Me: "That's the SAME THING. What's your next suggestion, snogging?"
Alex: "No, that's a weird word."
Me: "It's one of YOUR words."
Alex: "I don't use it."
Me: "Then who does? Who snogs?"
Alex: "Other British people."
Me: "...so you won't snog me?"
Alex: "Well I won't call it that."
Me: "I'm dating a British person and I don't even get to SNOG."

Life is unfair.

secret code

Usually my dreams are mildy strange and not particularly noteworthy. Last night was one of those nights. I dreamed that I was going on a long road trip but I didn't have any plan on where to go, so I was looking at a US map to find the cities with the weirdest names and then I would plan a route through those cities... while doing this I found Banana, North Dakota and Zoooooo, Michigan (both not real, I would hope) and then I got to Illinois. On my dream map, Illinois was now suddenly shaped like Tennessee and they'd changed all the names of the cities to a number and a letter. For example, the capital was 1A and the surrounding cities were something like 8b, 7s and 4r. Except for Manhattan, oddly, the city in which Alan lives.


Today in my Theory class we were talking about Structuralism, and I was kind of nodding off a little bit, but then sometime near the end of class we started talking about words and meanings and how a word may have a few different meanings but our understanding of which meaning is being used is a social and contextual knowledge... then someone brought up the book "Frindle" about the kid who renamed the pen to be a frindle, and how easily it was able to catch on, and then someone else brought up an assignment she'd had as a senior in highschool where her pyschology class had to invent a word and start using it in the hallways/cafeteria and whatnot to see if they could make it a new slang term within their school...

...and then THAT reminded me of when I was in middle school, a handful of friends and I had this code we used to pass notes. We basically came up with new symbols for all 26 letters of the alphabet and used them in notes we'd pass to each other so that if our notes were intercepted by anyone else they wouldn't be able to read it and our secrets would be safe. We used it so often that we became really fluent in our little secret written language and even though it only existed on paper, it was still an entirely new language that we invented for ourselves.

I'm not sure how ANY of this relates to structuralism, but the point is I'd forgotten how innovative I was as a child. It's a shame I was such a terrible pre-pubescent girl back then, using my powers for evil. You are all very lucky to know now!Kristina and not then!Kristina. I'm much nicer. ^_^

album stuff

Spattergroit was supposed to be done Friday so I could order the CDs and they could be on their merry little way through the postal service to get to me on time for Leaky.
As life usually goes, that didn't happen, and some time yesterday afternoon I started seriously panicking as I had neither all the completed tracks or album art.

Luke and Jason spent all weekend mixing and finishing the tracks and I have finally received all 10 tracks at 8:15 AM this morning, and I am putting the finishing touches on the art that Liz and I spent literally all of last night doing. We got home from seeing the new show at the theatre I work at around 11 PM, and from there worked straight from then to 3 AM when I finally fell asleep. Liz, on the other hand, worked straight through the night and was still drawing things when I woke up at 8 AM this morning. Granted she had a huge art assignment she needed to do as well, but still. I am now going to have to write a theory paper at gross-early o'clock on a Monday morning because of how much time this stupid album art took.

And it's not even done! I still have one empty space and nothing to fill it with yet. Ahhh.

I hope you guys like this album. It's been a pain in the ass these last few days.

In other, better news, I got a new phone finally. It's the Samsung Rant and it's purple. Sprint didn't really have any phones I was crazy about, but the Instinct was terrible and this phone is a reeeally fun shade of purple (my last phone was pink ^^) so I think I can live with it. It has Sprint TV on it and stuff, so that's a step up from my Katana that litterly only made phone calls. And probably would still make a nice door stop.

I am so jealous of Alex; he fell asleep around 1 and is still sleeping now. I don't even think it affected him that the light has been on this entire time.

Okay Adorno, let's talk about negative dialectics. SIGH.

boyfriends > homework

Ahhhhhhhh.

I hate having to write papers on Adorno and the Enlightenment when Alex is here. Writing those stupid theory papers is hard enough when I'm home alone with nothing to do, but when I have a whole LIST of things I'd rather do and person right here to go do them with me, it's REALLY DIFFICULT. Okay, I am going to quit acting like a child and actually say things about my life/day now.

I only have 1 month of school left. I only have one month of school left.


Alex will NOT want me to announce this on my blog, but I am happy to say I officially initiated him into the Parselmouths today by buying him a pink v-neck tshirt to wear for our show at LeakyCon. He still seems hesitant but I think it looks really good! People will be like "Man, THAT guy is in the Parselmouths. He's awesome."

He's not even paying attention to me right now, so I suppose this is prime paper writing time, but I can't focus so I am going to complain about how much I hate my theory class a bit more before eventually shoving it off until tomorrow when I won't have time because it's Mother's Day and I am spending with my Parental Unit of the same name, and then I will REALLY hate myself when I have to do it on Monday, early in the morning, because that's the day it's due.

At least I am prepared for this inevitable self-loathing.

I would be so much a more of peaceful person were it not for college.


Tonight I recorded vocals for a song for Alan/Tom and I've just realized that has nothing to do with what I am about to say, but here it is. A conversation I had with Alan:

Alan: I expect Parrot Stories to be released in time for the next presidential election.
Me: Hahha don't say that around Alex. He'll push you down the stairs.
Alan: hah, I'll wait til we're firm snugglin' on the couch first then, so there's nothign to get hurt on... I mean.. wont' mention it at all. thanks again for recording this, I'm off to bed
Me: See ya!
Me: Oh and dont get any funny ideas about snuggling. I have a monopoly on nerisnuggles.
Alan: hah, yeah, eventually the joke will get old and I'll stop
Alan: but apparently that time is not tonight


Oh yeah, waterfall day was fun. Alex and I got recognized by a youtube fan on the hike down to Snoqualmie falls literally in a forest in the middle of nowhere. That was a surreal experience.

Number of Chipotle Burritos Alex has eaten (EVER): 1

(He wasn't impressed. ...I didn't know how to take it.)

funfunfun

I haven't been writing anything in my blog because Alex has been here since Monday and I have just been living my life with him in it without being the computer constantly to keep me occupied and it's been nice.

I've been diligently driving the new fiesta pretty much everywhere. I am getting better, but I've been finding that when I arrive at where I am going, I let out this huge sigh and realize I can relax my whole body because it's been tense the entire drive without me even noticing. You can't just let your mind wander and drive like you can in an automatic.
I hope this is just a temporary learning thing and that it passes.

Last night Alex and I played Mario Party (7, for the gamecube) with Justin and it was a lot of fun (I lost, miserably, I don't know why I don't listen to Charlie and just stop trying to play against Alex) but we made it a drinking game and then Eia got home and we made this epic chili pasta thing and the whole thing was reminiscent of when Sam lived here and it was fun. She's coming to visit in June and I can't wait.

Today is Fiesta mission day; Alex and I are going to see how many waterfalls we can find today. Life is fun. :)

This is making me giggle as I think back to one of my favorite songs as a child, "Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls". Sorry TLC, but I am going to do just that.

Annoyed or not.

I am annoyed because I made a 5AG video today and YouTube won't let me upload it.

I uploaded it 4 different times; the last try has been processing for 4 hours now.

Also I walked home in the rain, which isn't actually all that bad except that I was wearing converse so my feet are soaked.


If I could fast forward to about 3 hours from now when I am getting Alex from the airport, I would be less annoyed. Also if my milk wasn't expired, that would be nice.
Someone put their guacamole on my bread too, so it's squished.

HOW'S YOUR DAY?

Alex will be here tonight. Instant mood lifter. :)

Days until Alex is here: 0!!!!
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Fiesta weekend!

Here is a synopsis of my Ford Fiesta weekend:

I wrote this bit on my laptop from my hotel room --
I got to my hotel, checked in at the desk, and then went to check in with the actual Fiesta people. When I walked up they said "Hey Kristina!" which surprised me, but I guess I did get picked because they all watched my video and now my picture is on the site.. hahaha. Still. Weird.

Now I am sitting alone in a pretty ritzy hotel room and there is no wifi so I am just typing this on a text document.

When I checked in they gave me a fiesta tshirt and new shoes in a little goodie bag. They're not special fiesta shoes or anything. Just sneakers. I don't really have good sneakers, so while I don't understand this gift, I'm not complaining.

I'm supposed to meet everyone downstairs in 15 minutes so I think I will head out now. This is exciting!

(That's all I wrote. The rest of this blog post will be after-the-fact.)

So that night we went to a meeting with dinner and an open bar (I LOVE being 21 xD) and they told us ALL about the movement itself, missions, what's required of us, what they're doing for us, and we had a little lesson in PR. We also were give sweet new Sony Webbie cameras with which to film things for the movement, and watched this video on how to use the cameras that was narrated by a woman with a hilarious accent.

We were then bused back to the hotel, and everyone decided we needed to party it up with the other agents. We all went to this nearby bar together, and then I split off in a group of four other people I'd gotten to know over the course of the evening and we had a great night. Among these four were two other agents, Derek and Meghan (the links go to their Fiesta profiles).

The next morning we had another meeting where we learned all about the cars themselves and I know more about the Fiesta specs than I ever thought I would know about a car. Also the cars were made in Germany and built to English standards so many of the features are European. The hood and trunk and referred to as the bonnet and the boot, the voice activated thing talks to me in a female british accent, and the degree and gas readers are all in Celcius and miles per liter. That's annoying.

When we all panicked about the Celcius reading, the auto guy was like "Think of it this way: if you're hot.... turn it down. If you're cold... turn it up. It'll be fine." xD

After we had learned everything we ever wanted to know about the Ford Fiesta, they took us down to the "track" and we FINALLY got to see our cars. They looked so cool and colorful and exciting all lined up beside each other. There was 13 cars; we were the very last of the agents to recieve them. Surprisingly, no one's was exactly the same as anyone else's. The graphics on the side are so fun.

I was still feeling pretty nervous about driving it, but the instructor helping me said "Listen. Other people on the road? Fuck 'em." ...and it was the best advice he could have given me. Nothing makes you freak out more than worrying what the car behind you is thinking as you continuously stall on a hill. So fuck 'em. They can wait a second.

Meghan's friend Tim (whom I'm glad I met as he is an incredibly lovely person) saw I was struggling when they'd set me on the orange cone track by myself, so he ran and hopped in my car and drove around with me for about an hour while I started to get a better hang of the car. When you learn in a clunky old car and then suddenly switch to a supersmooth 2011 fiesta, there is a whole lot to adjust to. I was grateful for the extra help.

Around 2pm they gave me some complimentary sunglasses (I think I missed out on the cool ones during my driving lessons and got stuck with these really boy-ish ones. Maybe I'll give them to Alex) and a custom fiestamovement glasses case, and they sent me on my merry way.


On the way home I got stopped at a light on a hill and literally had to sit through TWO FULL GREEN LIGHTS before I realized I wasn't going to be able to do it without the e-brake, and heart pounding, face red, I finally got the car to go up the hill and drove sheepishly the rest of the way home.

That was my fiesta weekend! I am so excited to actually get good at driving this car and going on missions and such. I'm going to pick Alex up from the airport in it tomorrow. I'm going to consider that Mission #1. Hahaha.


Days until Alex gets here: ONE!
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ESTUPEN

Fiesta Training was AWESOME but more on that later.


Firstly, I got a message on YouTube today with a subject that said "LOCA".

I opened it and it said:

"QUE ESTUPIDECES CREES QUE DICES ERES UN ESTUPEN"

I don't speak any Spanish at all, but I figured the gist of it was that I was being called stupid.

Babelfish gave me this:

"THAT STUPIDITIES YOU THINK THAT YOU SAY YOU ARE A ESTUPEN"

With this I felt we were getting closer, but I wanted a second opinion.
Another generic translation site said this:

"THAT YOU BELIEVE STUPIDITIES THAT YOU SAY YOU ARE AN ESTUPEN"


Well, 2 for 2, there you have it folks. I am an estupen. Can I get a definition on that from Jordiekins please? I feel you would excel at this.

EDIT: Commenter Callidora thinks estupen is actually another word for "stupendous". All in favor of going with that definition?

Days until Alex gets here: 2
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"Success" ?

Okay, I'm sorry. But I need to rant.

I found this cute little collab these girls made where they covered "Mrs. Nerimon" and wrote new lyrics about whataboutadam. Whatever, I mean we're all just having fun on YouTube, so where's the harm in that?

I realized they never once mentioned that I was the original creator of the song, and that bothered me a little bit, and I am so used to telling people off for art-stealing on DeviantArt that I just left a short civil comment saying:

"Can you please credit me for using my song? It's fine if you want to cover it, but it's common courtesy to give credit to the person it actually belongs to."

I didn't think it was rude or demanding or anything. Just a request, honestly for something they probably just forgot to do.

Sure enough a few of the comments back said things like "OMG wow sorry, I was going to but then wrote the sidebar info in a hurry, I'll change that right now!"

But ONE girl left this:

"andrsdtz (3 hours ago)
Gosh Kristina its fine if you want us to credit your original song and that is fine. But is the success getting over your head? I mean really chill! Also our Lyrics where awesome and not ment for Nerimon, they where purely ment to fit our beloved Adam aka Whataboutadam. If you dont like them DONT LISTEN TO THEM. Rant modus off"

If it's fine that I want you to credit me, then where is this "success getting over my head" nonsense coming from? I never asked for a statue erected in my honor. I never asked them to take it down. I never asked them to tell everyone that I am far superior to them in every way. I just asked for them to put in the sidebar that my band created the original song.

I think people see what they want to see when they look at others on the Internet.
I try my hardest to be a nice person. I try to reply to as many emails as I can. I read and rely to comments.
If my success had gone over my head, I could have flagged the video and just had it taken down. It would be easy.

BUT I DIDN'T.

So shut up, stupid person.
And if you say my relationship is predictable, joking or no, yes I am going to be a little offended. "If you like them don't listen to them" ? One of the lines was about me. Of course I am going to listen.

I'm just annoyed. I'm not some celebrity whose fame has gone to her head. I'm not a celebrity at all.
I'm a girl who works hard on music and wants to be recognized when someone covers one of her songs.

People get accounts SUSPENDED all the time for using music that is copyrighted on YouTube. Why should I let it slide when it's my music? Should I, because I am not a "real" musician signed with a "real" label?

Doctor Who: Season 3, Episode 6
Days until Alex gets here: 3

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