Friday, May 31, 2002

behind schedule

i'm about 30 minutes behind schedule tonight... i wanted to be in bed by 12:30, but it looks like it's going to be more like 1. oh well, i'll survive.

i'm getting ready for work weekend with the youth group... when we all head to an unfamiliar church to hammer out all the kinks in the musical. i'm slightly unprepared... i'm woking on props inventory lists and costume lists and packing and laundry and finding correct lyrics to the songs.... i'm sure i'm going to forget something and i hate that feeling!

i can't beleive that we're leaving on tour in a little less than three weeks. i'm really excited for a lot of reaasons, one being that i haven't been further south than sb since '99. i'm stoked about going to disneyland, and having dinner with danny. i'm hoping o get to meet up with some of the old irvine crew, too. plus i think the musical is really good this year, so that part's going to be fun too. ;-)

ok, must pack.

Thursday, May 30, 2002

a cool breeze

long day at work. i can hardly beleive that a week from today will be my last day there. on that note, any of you locals know of good places that are hiring?

today was really hot... hot enough so that when i returned home tonight it was actully warmer inside than outside, which rarely happens here, becaue my house is in the shade.

now, i don't open my window often, because we have overzealous gardeners and the smell of feshly cut grass makes me sneeze. but it was a little too stuffy in my room, so i opened up my window and pulled the curtain back. i realized that the way i have my room set up, this allows me to work on my computer, feel a nice cool breeze, and enjoy the view out my window at the same time!

so now my room smells all cool and fresh, i'm all relaxed and ready to get down to bills and paperwork. joy. ;-)

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

blogger insider 3

time for round three of blogger insider! this time around i was paired with brina of doppelganger.nu. if you'd like to see my questions and her answers, they're here.

1. What are your desert island top five favorite books?
in no particular order, and chosen for repeat readability (after all, these are desert island 5, not best all time 5!)
-the bridge across forever by richard bach. simply a beautiful book. one of, if not my very favorites.
- siddhartha by herman hesse, rosner translation. just about the only thin i read in senior english that i actallyliked
- the master and margaria by bulgakov. a christmas gift from a friend a few years ago... i think i've read it 9 or 10 times since. great stuff. however, you have to get the mirra ginsburg translation. that's important.
-the outsiders by se hinton. to this day i can read this book cover to cover, then start over again immediately. great stuff.
-finally, daisy fay and the miracle man by fannie flagg. makes me laugh so hard i have to pee.

2. Albums?
- abbey road, the beatles
- grace, jeff buckley
- room for squares, john mayer
- surfacing, sarah mclachlan
- billy breathes, phish

3. Films?
- the little mermaid
- notting hill (i have a penchant for bad romance movies)
- the last unicorn
- the x-files (oh, that's a shocker)
- i'm going to cheat here and tack five movies into one slot, since they're all interconnected... the films of kevin smith! clerks, mallrats, chasing amy, dogma, and jay and silent bob strike back.

4. Websites?
exploding dog
the mirror project
the onion
ebay
etree

5. Crayola crayon colors?
kelley green, red, sky blue, purple and burnt siena.

6. As you can see, I'm a sucker for top five lists. How do you feel
about them?
well, first of all, they remind me of high fidelity. but really, i find them challenging, simply because i likeso much different stuff.

7. If you could own one great work of art, would you? If so, what would
it be?

i would definetly take the opportunity to own some real great art. choosing it would be really hard to choose. for some reason, my brain screamed guernica when i read this question, which is funny because i don't really like that painting! i think if i had to choose, i'd pick something by chagall.

8. What, besides watching "Northern Exposure," do you occupy yourself
with when you can't sleep?

i read, knit, work on this page, clean things, or watch movies.

9. What's your strategy on mix tapes? Do you have a specific formula
you stick to?

oooh, this one is good. first, i decide what the purpose of the mix. is it themed? who is it for? Is it to introduce them to new music, or is a mix or music they already like? Ater I figure out all that, I go about choosing songs. I pick one or two songs per artist, and I get about twice as many as I need. I then listen to them all, listening for musical and lyrical elements that will get across what emotion or theme I’m trying to convey. I narrow things down, making sure no artist appears twice. Then comes the ordering of the cd… there are a few important elements to this. I usually decide what I want to start the cd off with, then go from there. it’s important that all the songs flow well into one another, so I listen to tempo, key and mood. The ratio of male to female artists are usually 2:1, with more male artists, so it’s important to have them evenly spaced. Then I choose the cover art, which should be a graphic representation of the music on the cd. I make a booklet with lyrics, tracklist, and voila! All done!
It usually takes me a week to make a really great mix, and when it’s for someone else, I try to stick by these guidelines as much as I can… I see these mixes as audio emotions, so I want them to be sincere and thoughtful.

10. If you could have just one super power, what would it be and why?
i think i'd choose flight, partly because it'd be hella cool, and partly because it would be a faster form of transportation than walking (or maybe even driving, if you aren't going far).

11. What is your biggest pet peeve?
i don't know! i'll have to think about that one.

12. Do you have other reasons for not eating red meat now that it's
been so long? Is it still a question of challenging yourself, or do you
have health/ethical concerns as well?

well, i've heard that when you go back on a food you haven't eaten for a long time, it makes you sick, so that keeps me from eating it. mostly, though, it's about testing my willpower... plus i finally did something that's good for me, and i want to stick with it.

13. Isn't Jon Stewart hot? Isn't he? Okay, well, then ... who would be
in your celebrity harem? Male/female, no limits ...

yes, jon stewart is hot.
well, top on my list is david duchovny, beacuse, well, i'm in love with him. plus he's hot. let see. who else? matthew perry. i'm also in love with him. john mayer, jimmy fallon and page (from phish).
as for girls, i'd say drew barrymore, margaret cho and gillian anderson for starters.
additions: gideon yago, david hyde pierce,

14. You say you love to travel. What's the worst roadtrip/traveling
experience you've ever had?

i think the worst experience would have to be my trip from philadelphia to california in january of this year. i had just sone a bisco mini-tour, and i was anxious to get home to my own bed and warmer weather! i was dropped off at the airport only to discover that the first leg of my flight had been cancelled due to a blizzard in atlanta (and at that point i was so happy i hadn't tried to catch an earlier flight out... i definetlywould have been totally stranded.) after a bit of begging, the nice ticket lady was able to get me on a flight to salt lake city, but i had to wait five hours! i bought a book, and waited... and waited... and waited... finally got on my flight, which was uneventful. when i arrived in salt lake, i noticed that my flight to sf had been delayed... from 8pm to 2am. there was no way i was going to sit in an airport for another six hours, only to arrive in san francisco at 4 am with no one to pick me up, so i flew standby to san jose, which was closer to where i wanted to be anyway. my bag, however, went on it's merry way to san francisco, so the next day i had to drive up there to get it. by the time i arrived home i was so stressed out and tired... but i was happy to be back in cali!

15. Answer one question I didn't ask but that you wish someone would.
let's see... i wish someone would ask i if would come work for them, at ridiculously high pay, with benefits and generous time off, and of course, the job would require very little actual work. my answer would obviously be yes. ;-)

Saturday, May 25, 2002

i'm back, baby!

so after several frustrating weeks of e-mail tag with support folks and a complete re-install of movabletype, i'm back!

this limited edition design is a tribute to the best show ever, which i will miss dearly. it should work in all updated browsers. anyway, i was tired of pink, and the design i've been working on sporadically for the past month was nowhere near done, so i tossed this together in about five hours. i have no clue when the new design will be done.... maybe if i stop trying to be so ambitious i'll finish it sooner. we'll see.

anyway, i hope everyone is having a great memorial day weekend!

~smooches~

Friday, May 24, 2002

friday five!

friday five!

1. What's the last vivid dream that you remember having?
actually, last night i had a dream that involved... someone from my past (and i'll leave it at that). we were in a huge room with a bunch of beds and strange bathrooms made of glass.. (??)... it looked like an orphanage, but it was a dorm room. all of the beds had colorful, 80's cartoon character sheets and beadspreads on them. there were guys and girls there. at one point i looked out a window, and things were on fire, which scared me. i asked the person i was with if we could leave, and then i woke up.
2. Do you have any recurring dreams?
not lately, and it pisses me off. i've had a few great dreams, where i wake up in them morning and feel great, and i'd love to have them be recurring. the nightmare i had when i was little (see below) was a recurring dream... thank god that one stopped.
3. What's the scariest nightmare you've ever had?
i used to have a nightmare when i was little... i don't remember any details, but i remember that it scared me senseless. lucky i don't ahve it anymore.. i think if i did, it would still scare me.
4. Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not?
i wrote one of my dreams down once, only to re-discover it a number of years later. reading it, i was horribly embarrased that my subconcious could even come up with something so... bizarre. so, since the dreams that i remember are often bizarre and therefore slightly embarrasing, i don't ever write them down.
5. Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it?
i've never had a luicid dream... at least, not one that i've remembered when i woke up. i've been trying for years, though, and i read somewhere that if you try to have a lucid dream long enough, that you'll have one eventually. so i guess i'll keep trying.

Sunday, May 19, 2002

the end...

well, that's it... the end of the x-files.

i'm kind of.... numb. that's really the only way i can describe it. i don't think the fact that i won't be curled up on my couch in 3 or 4 months watching the season opener has sunken in yet. it's one of those things, where you've been doing something for so long, you're not quite sure what you're going to do once it's over.

i started watching the x-files sometime towards the tail end of season two. i remember being in the youth room at church, looking at episode synopsis printouts that my friend vanessa had brought with her, and i think that had something to do with my initial interest in the show, although it's been so long now i really can't say how long it's been or how long i've actually been watching.

during high school, i remember staying home on friday nights to watch with my sister. i remember being on the edge of the couch, biting my nails during anasazi, the season two closer, wondering if mulder was really burning up in that underground train car. i remember screaming at what looked like a real cockroach crawling across my tv screen in war of the coprophages. i remember being scared shitless during home (which was so freaky that they only aired it on network tv once after that... on halloween 99, and i watched it then, too). i remember being thrilled when i found out my college roommate was also a huge fan of the show. i remember sitting in our dorm room, in the dark, watching every week, and the next year, sitting in the condo, watching every week. i saw the movie opening weekend. i hung the framed movie poster in my living room. i started buying the dvd box sets. and i kept watching every week.

plain and simple, the show sucked me in, and kept me riveted. it had everything. comedy, drama, suspense, romance, cool storylines and great acting. i'm re-watching the series, in order, and there are a few shows i missed the first time around, but even the ones i've seen several times keep me interested and intrigued.

i'm sad to see it go, but at the same time, relieved. although i enjoyed some of the stuff that was going on with dogget and reyes, mulder and scully were the x-files. their relationship held the show together, and without that, it just wasn't the same. still good, still interesting, but not the same.

the series ender was great. seeing mulder again was awesome. having everything wrapped up and explained was nice, too. the best part though, was the scene in the hotel room, which i recognized as almost identical to a scene from the pilot episode. my sister caught that it was reversed, and when i watched the pilot after the end of the finale (for closure, i guess), i noticed that the outside shot of the hotel room was identical. that was a nice touch, and a nice way to close the series.

overall, it was a damn good nine years of tv. i wish it could have been longer. i'm sure i'll be watching my dvd's often, and i can't wait for the movie(s), but i'm not quite sure what i'm going to do on sunday nights anymore.

Wednesday, May 1, 2002

blogger insider 2

well, a fix for my movabletype probem is in the works, and i'm also working on a new layout for when i return to the world of blogging... hopefully in the next week or so.

in the meantime, here are my answers for this round of blogger insider. I was paired up with Edward Champion of Dr. Mabuse's House of Fun. if you're interested, my questions and his answers can be found here.

1. what medium do you consider to be the world's central art form and why?
my friend harrison wanted me to say conversation, just to throw everyone for a loop, but i'll have to go with music. music is just one of those universal things that speak to people regardless of language barriers. cultural barrieres are a bit tougher to hurdle, but i think music, of all things, can do that.

2. if your cat had the ability to talk, what three questions do you think she would ask you? and how would you answer them?
the only question she'd probably ask is why we keep waking her up from her naps, and my answer would be that she's so cute i can't resist petting her. i'm sure that she'd like that answer (she likes it when people tell her she's cute) and then she'd go back to sleep. ;-)

3. you mentioned an undeveloped picture of camryn manheim somewhere in your room. what other pictures are on that roll and are you deliberately holding onto other rolls of film in this manner?
oh god, i think that film has halloween, the camryn manheim photo, and a few shots from my trip back east over new years. you know, i don't normally hang onto film that long, but i've been pretty broke lately, so i haven't had the 15 bucks lying around to get them developed.

4. since the acting world is incredibly competitive, what specific qualities do you believe you can add which will allow you to not only break through the barrier but offer a distinct voice?
well, i don't plan on doing acting as a profession simply because of the competitive nature... i'm not a very competitive person, and i'm perfectly happy doing community theater kind of stuff. i do acting and theater just because i love doing it. i do it for myself, not for anyone else. however, i'm planning on offering my 'distinct voice' through teaching... i'm planning on getting a masters in education and i'm going to teach high school theater. my dream is to help develop a good theater program at a school that may not have had one before.

5. describe the last politically related news that really angered or depressed you. and why?
well, the stuff going on in israel right now is very upsetting to me, mostly because it's really frustrating to see supposedly intelligent people being stubborn, stupid assholes. it doesn't help that we have family friends over there and my best friend want to go over there in two months.

6. okay, i'll fess up. i'm a joyce nut. why specifically did you hate "portrait of the artist as a young man"? will you ever give the book a second chance? did you hate it because it was difficult or too vivid? explain in reasonable terms why joyce (fer the love of all that is great about books, joyce!) stunk up the room!
well, it's been a long time since i've read the book, so i can't be too specific, but i just remember being bored of of my skin. i'm not sure if i'll ever read it again, but i may thumb through a copy so i can give you a better answer to this question someday.

7. what are your main influences in book choices? and how do you feel about the demise of the oprah book club?
lets see... in high school i started playing the dollar game... i'd scour the clearance racks and look for books that had neat titles, cool jackets and compelling summaries. i still do that, but clearance books are a bit more expensive than they used to be. now, i get great suggestions from friends, and i check out the besteller rack, the independent bookseller reccomendations and the employee recommendations at my local bookshop (a fantastic place, you should check it out if you're ever here in town.

as for the oprah book club, i am sad that it's ending not for my own sake, but for the sake of all the folks who started reading again because of it. i was rarely able to watch the book club episodes, but the first one i saw compelled me to buy a book that is now one of my favorites (the reader by Bernhard Schlink). Looking back at the list of books, I realize I've read quite a few of them... She's Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, Where the Heart Is, The Reader, Drowning Ruth, and The Corrections. Fall on Your Knees is next on my list.

8. what was the last great holiday-oriented experience that you had and why? describe it.
i'll have to go with last 4th of july... my family and i were at the beach, and at dusk, the fireworks started... a few at first, but after about half an hour, they were hundreds of fireworks going off all down the beach. this went on for four hours (and i'm not even kidding). fireworks are illegal where i live, so it was a rather amazing sight. of course, we had to get in on the action... we had giant sparklers and some hard core, expensive fireworks imported from washington state. ;-)

9. if you could slide one of your five senses up into an almost superhuman level, which one would it be and why?
i think i'd have to pick sight. i've been nearsighted since i was 10, and my vision is really bad, and i really hate having to rely on glasses and/or contacts... it's like looking through a tunnel. i am eagerly awaiting they day when they have perfected laser eye surgery (and it will be totally covered by insurance by then, of course) and then i'll throw my glasses away forever!

10. you said that september 11 was the scariest thing that had happened to you. what was the second scariest thing?
well 9/11 really eclipsed almost everything because not too much has been really that scary, per se. i think the second scariest thing would have to be the gulf war. it was two days before my twelfth birthday and i remember vividly being very upset about it, because i had hoped that mine would be the first generation to see no u.s. involvements in any wars. i was an optimistic child. ;-)

11. what's your favorite shakespeare play and why?
i think i'd have to go with a midsummer night's dream, because it's funny as hell.

12. if you had to pick one, ibsen or strindberg?
that's easy. ibsen, without a doubt. a dolls house is one of my favorite plays... i wrote more than one paper on it during college. strindberg is a little weird for me, i think. they did a dream play at ucsc 2 years ago, i had to not only read the play, but see it as well. the design was fantastic, but i didn't really like the play itself, the acting or the actual text. it was really a sticky situation because the director was one of my ta's and i had to write a paper on it... i wanted to be truthful and tell her that i thought it was terrible, but like any good undergrad, i feared for my grade and turned in a nice, mild paper.

13. which of these questions did you answer first?
the last one.

14. a train is traveling westward towards a crossroads at 10mph. a pickup truck is puttering along northwards at 7mph. there is no indication that this intersection between rail and road is a railroad crossing aside from an crumbling x sign that dates back to 1947, which can only be seen during the daytime. however, both respective vehicles travel at nighttime and there are no lights on the road. what happens to the truck and the train? and how do their respective speeds factor into the equation?
um, didn't you get the memo? theater geeks don't get up before 11 am, and they don't do math. however, there are some problems with this equation... you didn't mention if the truck was traveling towards the intersection, and you didn't specify the distance between the crossroads and the vehicles, so there is no way to tell if the vehicles will ever intersect or not. (i may not be good at math but i can pick a word problem apart like nobody's business.)