A Mighty Fine Life

Why must Harry Potter always steal my birthday? *long suffering sigh*

WHATEVER. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

HI WHO CAN FIND ME A SCREENCAP OF PRESIDENT OBAMA SHAKING HANDS WITH DEREK JETER BECAUSE I WILL GIVE YOU A PRIZE AND IT WILL BE MY ETERNAL LOVE *FLAIL*

What's awesome is that I'm watching with munkykiss and she had the exact same reaction. &Blanca;

Incidentally, it totally pays to be friends with a librarian; I posted yesterday about that short story in Ranger Rick that I vaguely recalled, and today second_batgirl hacked into a government database or something and with nothing but my incoherent description to go on, found it! It was "Trash Trek" from the September 1990, volume 24, issue 9, page 18-26. DUDE.

Man, for some reason work today felt like a marathon and I am so freaking exhausteed. IDEK. *collapses*

#1: Saturday was DK's birthday. There was bowling and ping pong and general shenanigating, and needless to say, it was awesome. ♥

#2: I watched WALL-E last night and it reminded me of a story I read in Ranger Rick in the early 90s sometime, but I haven't been able to figure out anything useful like the issue, or title, or author, or anything. Grrrrr. It was a creepy future where some space explorers landed on a planet that was nothing but trash, and met the weird mutants who lived there and asked about how it got to be that way, and basically the planet never learned to recycle and completely junked itself generations ago, and no one even remembered the what the planet was called before the junkenating. (Hence thinking of it while watching WALL-E.) And of course the twist at the end was -- gasp -- as they were taking off to go back to the spaceship, the weird mutant thing yelled after them, "Wait! I remember the name of the planet! It was Earth! The name of the planet was Earth!"

GASP!

Shut up, I was, like, 8.

Anyway, on the very offchance that anyone else was a) a nature geek; and b) read that issue, anything? Any clues? Anyone?

#3: So I watched Disney's awful Princess Protection Program, yeah? But I just want to put out there, mockery aside (it was really pretty bad) that I actually love that it's a story about two girls who become BFFs. And that's it. No awkwardly shoehorned in romance, just two girls, making friends, and girlfriendship being good as the moral of the (completely incoherent) story.

(Basically, I was reading this meta and sort of did a doubletake; because it's a DCOM, they aren't really "awesome likable hot active fleshed out female characters," but they were basically likable, almost-but-not-quite-fleshed out, female characters who were definitely the most important protagonists AND not attached to love interests. DUDE, that is RARE.)

#4: My birthday is Wednesday. :D

1) Sign ups for Secret Slash at the Refuge! Obviously totally important.

2) Daria is finally coming out on DVD! Not until next year, but still! Hooray!

3) There is no three, I lied.

The end. No, I lied again. ETA: Meme from falco_conlon. Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

( My words: Newsies, The Refuge, HSM, Slash, Sprace )

Gabriella: You'd better step away from the mirror for long enough to check the damage that will always be right behind you!

Melanie: What? That didn't mean anything! It was like a Sarah Palin speech!


(The moral of the story? Yes, I do make every single person who comes to visit watch these movies. It's the price of staying on our couch.)

The problem with Rachel being on summer break is that she no longer gets up at 6:30 AM and feeds and cuddles the cat. Lilly is REALLY NOT OKAY with this.

What the sky looked like over Citi Field last night:


(From the NY Times.)

(ETA: More pictures of the sky from yesterday.)

I almost never actually use this place to write about things I do in my life, which is weird, now that I think about it. But let's see. Thursday night I went out with a bunch of my coworkers to see "7.Eleven," which is a series of seven eleven-minute long plays, all set in convenience stores/bodegas, about the Indian-American immigrant experience. I missed a lot of cultural references (and I don't speak Hindi), but they were all phenomenally well done and I'm really glad I went.

After, we all went out for dinner. Amazing: fried goat cheese with honey. I basically ate my weight in it.

Last night was the game. My boss (a die-hard Mets fan) had an extra ticket and offered it to me; I went as my birthday present to myself. (Two and a half weeks, just FYI...) It started pouring while we were on the 7 train out to the stadium, and didn't let up for quite awhile; there was an hour rain delay. But after the storm passed over, it was gorgeous out. The sunset looked a bit apocalyptic, but it was pretty warm and summery, and good game-seeing weather.

And the game... :D I had a slightly better night than my boss, but he took it in stride. The Yankees won, 9-1, and it was one of the more entertaining games I've seen. Sabathia was completely on, which was just awesome to watch. I also really liked Citi Field, btw, probably more than Yankee Stadium II.

Anything else? Hm, at work yesterday we listened to Michael Jackson all day. But I think that's about it.

I'm back in New York! And I was kind of bored this evening so, as I do about once every three years, I attempted to make icons. Someone needs to take the color overlay option away from me.



( 19 icons, mostly color variations on the last one above )

I guess, comment/credit if you take? *shrug*

So I'm watching an episode of Sunny With a Chance. And

1) I love Sterling Knight. His three second gags in the background with no lines actually delivered are funnier than anything anyone else in the cast does.

2) Didn't there used to be a weird little girl character? She seems to have vanished. (Yay?)

3) Selena Gomez guest stars in this episode. She's hilarious!

4) I'm...pretty sure the show just implied that she and Demi are in love. ( Really. )

5) Except for Sterling (and, in this episode, Selena) no one on this show is as funny as the show thinks they are.

6) Ahahahahaha, jokes at Demi's expense please me.

7) I really want to like the "I don't need this, I was in Camp Hiphop!" gag, but since Selena is playing herself, and they keep making Wizards of Waverly Place jokes, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

8) I wish Selena was in every episode. And that it was just her and Sterling Knight yelling at each other.

Actually, wemblee gave me Burmudez for Chanukah a year or two ago; it fell apart a little bit in the end, but was 95% really good. Definitely one I'd recommend to most of the people on my friendslist.

You tell me: is it 2000, or 2009? I spent the afternoon and evening sitting around Sarah's house, chilling with her, Nelly, Kat, and Tim. AKA, the high school gang (minus Jared, sadly). Kat, Tim, and Sarah still live around these parts (or live around here again), but somehow Noelle and I had awesome timing because she's in from Oregon.

So it was a lovely, nostalgic evening. I think I've known Sarah since... 3rd grade? 4th? I became friends with Noelle in 6th, and Kat and Tim in high school. I'm absolute shit at keeping in touch with people, as 99% of people who knew me in college have since learned, but it's nice to be able to come how and still find friends.

In related news, I drove! I haven't done that in three and a half years, and never liked it much to begin with. But out in the country, there isn't much to hit. Heh. But I managed to stay on the road, and even in a single lane. (In fact, I prefer it when there are lines on the road, so I can better judge where the car is.) But for some reason, the one thing I'm not intimidated by is driving at night, so the way home was surprisingly fine. (There are no such thing as street lights on 99% of Newfield roads. This town, for the record, does not have a single stoplight. It really is that small.)

So: nice evening. Drove! Home safe. The end.

Clearly, yesterday morning when I said "sporadic updates" or whatever, what I meant was "several times daily flist spam."

So I don't know if you're all following the amazing Sims 2 + Newsies thread at The Refuge... But you should be. The always-fabulous ldhenson has created some frankly amazing Newsies Sims and has been sharing them with us. With her permission, here are some highlights. :D



( Recently, on All My Newsboys... (super duper image heavy) )

So it turns out that if you're 25 years old and use a High School Musical wallet, when that wallet is left on a bus, then turned into the driver and then to the station and you have to come collect it, the guy who hands it to you will smirk at you.

Bah, humbug. My cheap-ass plastic wallet makes me happy whenever I see it.

The money -- about $19 -- was gone when it was turned in, but the credit card was still there, thankfully. And it was at the same station where I'd just been, not at any of the Cornell stops or Elmira or somewhere, thank god. They called my mom when we were still on the way home, since I apparently had her business card in my wallet, and the guy at the station figured we'd be related, based on having the same last name and all. So no crisis, just smirking.

But now I'm home with my folks, chilling out. I shucked some corn for dinner and walked around the property to see all the new gardeny stuff they've done. It's very green out, and there's so much space. And quiet. Very odd, if you ask me.

ETA: Conversations had by my parents since I arrived home:

Mom (using a leaf blower): Don't tell me anything until I turn this off, I can't hear.
Dad: What? Turn that off, you won't be able to hear what I'm saying!
Mom: Wait until I turn it off! I can't hear you!
Dad: I can't hear you! What? Turn that off!

And:

Mom: The toothpick just came out of this cleanly, so is it done?
Dad (about 80% asleep): Stick it with a toothpick, see if it comes out clean.

And I won't even share the puns. Lordy.

Cellphone and iPod are both charged. Tickets are purchased. I'm off to spend the next five days-ish with the 'rents upstate, so updates/flist reading will be sporadic. <3

Um.

So.

I think I might take a math class for fun?

IDK, I kind of need a hobby and really liked math in high school but didn't take any in college. I can probably take a non-matric class this fall for relatively cheap, and CUNY has a campus two subway stops from my apartment.

( I mean, tell me this doesn't sound like fun. )

Sometimes I forget I'm an enormous nerd.

I was at work for ten and a half hours today.

I think the less said about that, the better.

Unrelated: my project for the last few days has been moving and organizing my delicious bookmarks, so that fannish things aren't under an account name that my coworkers could potentially run across. So, I did that.

If you are for some reason interested in perusing a massive list of HSM (and a less massive list of Newsies) fics I enjoyed enough to want to reread (the closes to a recs list I've got), it's over here.

Possibly it's especially useful if you're looking for pr0n.

Whew! The crazy bookathon weekend is over. If you didn't follow along as it happened, you can see all the various gathered bits and pieces with the Book Challenge tag at AV. My vital stats:

Books Read: 8
Pages Read: 2,306
Hours Read: 26:41

Not as overpowering as some folks', but not bad, if I do say so myself.

And now a meme from falco_conlon.

01. Anyone who looks at this entry is invited to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper.
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this. The point is to see what you had on.

( Hint: he's curly-haired and super dreamy. )

In case you missed it on one of my three other blogs or on poisonivory 's journal, Jess and I are doing the 48 Hour Book Challenge. For charity! Specifically, this weekend we'll be reading as much YA as we can, and live-blogging over at AV; we are asking for people to sponsor us for a dollar or two per book. Proceeds will all go to Room to Read. It's gonna be awesome.

Of course, this necessitates books, and possibly I ran out and bought a couple, leaving me those PLUS what I've already got lying around. Ah ha ha... ha. Help me decide which to read (first)!

Poll #1410742 Help me pick books!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which book should I read (first?)

Reading-related, but sad: David Eddings died. I can't even say how formative his novels were to me, both as I became a fantasy fan and as I started writing. I'm not much for epic fantasy at this point, but those were some damn fun reading, and I think he will be greatly missed. :(((

And to cheer everyone up after that, have some pictures of Corbin looking like an adult (read: hot). Click to embiggen. There is stubble and chest hair.







*swoon* I think I need a mint julep and a lie down.

And on that lecherous note, I am off to bed.

I just rewatched Terminator 3, and had forgotten this truly awesome exchange:

Kate: [to John] Who are you?

John: [to Terminator] Tell her who I am.

Terminator: He is John Connor, leader of the worldwide human resistance, and last, best hope of humankind.

Kate: Uh huh. [to John] Who is he?

John: He's a robot from the future.

Heeeeeeeeee.

Um, the last few lines (before the closing voiceover) actually are really good, though. ("This is John Connor at Crystal Peak." "Crystal Peak? Who's in charge there?" "...I am.")

I know I'm the only one who really likes the third movie, but I do! I enjoy it like I enjoy really good fanfiction, though. It uses an established world and characters very, very well, and is super entertaining. It just doesn't feel like "canon" to me because JD happening entirely negates the first two movies, which are all about how nothing is inevitable and we make our own fates. But as a movie, in and of itself, I enjoy it quite a bit.

Queenitsy.com

I wanted to a) finally make a layout using only div positioning, and b) see if I could convert it to a WP theme. So I installed WP on queenitsy to use as a CMS (not that there's much content there to manage), and voila. It turned out more or less how I wanted (warning: lots of rainbow stars), which is lovely. Meanwhile, I still don't know PHP so I make no use of any of WP's actual features, but still.

I am pleased by it!