No matter what you try to tell me, the little men in my head have decided that it’s finally spring and my mood today reflects that proclamation. I feel great today.
For starters, I have a new favorite song. Not an all-time favorite song, mind you – Madonna still has that market cornered for me. I just have a new song of the moment. I bought Brandi Carlile’s most recent album The Story yesterday after “Turpentine” was playing on the radio when I woke up, and I’ve been listening to that song ever since. Take a listen in a background window while you read the rest of this entry, and you will be afforded a multidimensional sensory image of my current state.
Another great thing about today, aside from the bright sun and the thirty-five degree weather, was something that happened to me at the Rock as I was coming out of my first English class on the way to my second. I generally ignore whoever’s out there when I pass by – they’re trying to get me to sign up for their club or come to their event or do something else I have no interest in – but today, there were dueling causes. One kid was sitting at his dinky little table trying to sell baked goods for the benefit some human rights protest somewhere. I can’t be sure. He didn’t even have a sign.
Tuesday, March 4th is more than just Antonio Vivaldi’s 330th birthday and my half-birthday, ladies and gentlemen. It is, apparently, National Grammar Day. From the website:
“We believe language is something to be celebrated. March 4th is the perfect day to do it. It’s not only a date, it’s an imperative. So March forth on March 4th! Celebrate your mother tongue!
Also, there’s already a National Punctuation Day, and it didn’t seem fair to leave clauses and such things by the wayside when the commas that embrace them get such attention.”
The thing that I love about this day that I’ve just discovered, other than having cause to celebrate one of the nerdy things I enjoy on my half birthday, is the name of the organization behind it: SPOGG. The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. Join here. You’ll be glad you did.
In other news, I wish I had a motorcycle, and that it was warm enough to drive one up and down Lakeshore Drive. That would be perfect. Speaking of which:
Tech for Tattoo Girl starts today. I’m already completely burned out. Usually it takes me until about the Wednesday of tech week, when we’re in dress rehearsals, to be exhausted and sick of this crap. But I’m there now, a few days early, wishing I could just …. skip rehearsal for the next week. Which is completely not possible.
The last week of school is also bearing down on me. That, I’m more pumped for, because that means it will soon be reading week, when I’m going to sleep in til ten (that’s late for me these days, except for today), work leisurely on some papers or something, and go to rehearsal. It’s going to be relaxing and great and I can’t wait.
But one week stands between me and that bliss. One week. Tech, I will vanquish you.
I will vanquish you very slowly, and I’ll probably complain about it the whole time.
Sorry. Sometimes the little Bon Jovi cover band in my head just has to be heard.
About three more inches of snow last night, I see from looking out my window… but my computer says it’s 34 degrees outside! Above freezing! Heat wave! I couldn’t be more excited.
Well, I’d be more excited if I weren’t so hungry, but as soon as I sign this post I’m heading over to breakfast. So by the time you’re reading this, you may rest assured that I couldn’t be more excited.
I love the contrast between the inside areas of the leaves and their edges in this photo. But that’s not all that I love about it. I just can’t put my finger on the rest.
Anyway, it’s time for school. Did I mention that this quarter is almost over? Next week is the last week of classes (and tech week for my winter show). After that comes reading week (which is also the first week of rehearsals for my spring show), then finals week and then spriiing break.
I never thought I’d find myself feeling the need, however legitimate, to get myself a DSLR camera. I’ve got a great SLR and a great little digital camera, both Canon, and they both have served me very well for their respective purposes. I took a few photography classes in high school, and they were the best way to get a class credit for a term I ever could have imagined. I learned a lot and had a great time and I have a portfolio I’m pretty proud of from those days. My digital camera works like a dream for my non-artistic photography endeavors – gatherings, concerts, snapshots, whatever.
It never occurred to me that a mix of the two would make my life better until I took them both out shooting yesterday. It was a beautiful Saturday evening and I went to the park near my apartment to play with the light. I shot SLR until I was out of film and then I switched to digital and felt the difference instantly. I missed being able to tweak my focus and my depth of field, but I was loving being able to see my photos immediately and switch instantly back and forth between B&W and color. The combination would be the best of both worlds!
Eventually I found myself taking digital photos and making a mental note to come back to the park at the same time of day once I’ve got more film and have gotten my SLR’s battery changed. I want to do up some of these shots for real-style. Read the rest of this entry »
My name is Abby, and I have a problem: I’m going broke on books I don’t have time to read.
The main problem is the fact that there are two bookstores and a library between my apartment and my school. If it were just a library, there wouldn’t be a problem – libraries are free, after all, and my library card is perfectly good. The thing is, though, that the library is across the street from threegreatrestaurants, and my walk home from school hovers right around lunchtime every day. So instead of going broke on lunch in restaurants every day, I alter my route and therefore walk by Borders or Barnes & Noble (or both, if I’m blessed/cursed by fate). I have to say it is taking every iota of willpower I can muster to keep me from going in there more than once a week, and I buy books every time.
Here’s the thing. I’d pack myself a bag lunch and just go to the library, but that’s not how I read. I’m a college student. I rarely get all of my required reading done, unless I’m “speed reading” (a mostly-useless endeavor which for me consists of idly turning pages while on the phone), in which case there is little to no comprehension of the material involved. Needless to say, I don’t exactly do a lot of reading for pleasure unless I’m on a break from school, and given my penchant for taking summer classes those times are rare these days.
So if I stopped at the library on my way home, it’d be pretty disastrous. I’d check out book after book, bring them home, set them on my counter and ignore them for weeks. A year or so ago this wouldn’t have been a problem, since I had a convenient family member who could theoretically have made fines disappear (why did I never take advantage of that?!). Fortunately for her and unfortunately for me, she managed to find herself an awesome new job, leaving me high and dry in library-land. So, if I chose that route home, I would be going broke on fillo wrapped brie parcelsand library fines, as opposed to just tasty lunchtime treats.
My favorite thing about checking out the “Blog Stats” area of my dashboard is seeing what search terms brought people over here. So, in honor of my 683rd pageview, here are some lists of things people have Googled to get to my blog, in various orders according to various criteria.
Most Searched
Coming in first is the phrase “you are my brother forever” with a whopping fifteen hits. This is not at all surprising. When I was writing the series of entries about American Idol’s Renaldo Lapuz I figured it contained about a zillion buzzwords that would bring traffic to the post. Sort of a cheap trick, but hey, it worked, and it was mostly unintentional.
This key word beats the runner up on my list by 11 hits. There really aren’t any others worth mentioning in this category, so I’ll move on to…
The “What Were They Thinking?” Searches
Ladies and gentlemen, these are pretty good. We’ll start off with my favorite of the Weird Search Terms: “can you get sick eating dead lobster”. One soul searched this and scrolled through seven other results to get to me. What gets me about it is this: this person is Googling the effects of eating dead lobster as if he or she were accustomed to an alternative. That alternative, I can only imagine, is eating… live lobster? I personally have a thing about eating food that remotely resembles what it looked like while alive, but I’m fairly confident I’m not the only one who would think twice about eating a live lobster.
From way out in left field comes “make lobster on keyboard decisions”. I’d go on about this but I really can’t for the life of me figure out what it means. And here’s the interesting thing: my blog doesn’t show up in the first 20 pages of Google results for those terms. Somebody felt strongly enough about these key words to go through more than 200 results to find me. That’s dedication, whoever you are. That’s the type of person I like to have hanging around here. Come back any time, you, who are so concerned about making lobster on keyboard decisions!
Other choice items from this category are “underwater theme dental”, “recipe bacon prune loaf”, “tie clip, lobster” and “one off tractor”.
Hopefully the next 683 (read, arbitrary number, until I feel like doing this again) pageviews will provide me with more delightfully odd, delectably random search terms. Until then, I recommend that nobody make any lobster on keyboard decisions until we can get this issue solved.
The show would involve U.S.-wide tryouts starting this year, open to anyone 18 or older. A panel of coaches will select two teams – five men and five women – to train for six months, all expenses paid, at Lake Placid, N.Y.
They would train eight hours a day under professional coaches before going to regional playdowns for the 2010 U.S. Olympic trials in February 2009.
If they win, they’re off to the Vancouver Olympics, unlikely as that may seem.
To pick up where I left off yesterday: I’m sick, but not dead yet. My ears aren’t infected but there is fluid present. The doctor irrigated my right ear which I must say was the coolest thing ever! It was like a warm bath for my eardrum. It felt great. I was out of the doctor, Sudafed (with pseudoephedrine, none of that sissy on-the-shelf-at CVS stuff) in hand and bloodstream, in time to make my last class, which was good.
Then the onslaught started. I’ll spare you all the details but suffice it to say that stage managing two different shows, one of which is trying to last-minute schedule impromptu callbacks while the other is having a personnel crisis and having to cancel its first rehearsal because one of our leads dropped out, is pretty taxing.
The good news?
I bought Endless Ocean. For the uninformed:
I haven’t come across a blue whale like the one in the video yet, but I did make a dolphin friend (I named him Jeff, God of Biscuits) and hang out with some sharks for a while. That was pretty cool. Endless Ocean is a pretty great game once you get over the fact that all you do is swim around. I mean, sometimes you have objectives – take a picture of a certain kind of fish, explore a certain area, take a foundation bigwig down diving with you, whatever – but you don’t even have to complete them. You can just swim around.
It’s the best soothing, bedtime game I’ve ever seen.
yesterday after “Turpentine” was playing on the radio when I woke up, and I’ve been listening to that song ever since. Take a 
