I’ve seen fire and rain January 29, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : games & systems, live theatre, rants & raves , 2 commentsHoly crazy start to the week, Batman!
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:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54NICtS6oKQ&feature=related]
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.
-@
keepin’ it streamlined January 28, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : rants & raves , 1 commentI chose the worst possible time period to get sick.
I had to run auditions and callbacks and crap this past week and I have the First Rehearsal for my winter show tonight.
I started feeling crappy on Wednesday and it’s been a steady decline that I’ve been trying to ignore ever since. Ignore, that is, or cover up with massive amounts of Dayquil, Nyquil, Advil, Advil PM, Tylenol Severe Cold & Sinus, whatever else is in my medicine cabinet. Blegh. Blegh!
When I woke up this morning, though, all the stuff in my head was affecting my hearing. I hear everything at about 85% volume and higher-pitched things are distorted and tinny. It made playing the piano a rather hilarious event, and my cell phone ring tone is downright creepy.
The good news, though, is that when I discovered what my cell phone sounded like it was because the university health services people were calling me back. I’ve got an appointment for 10:30. I have class from 10-1 today but the 10-11 one is missable. The 11-12 one isn’t really missable but if I go, I’ll have nothing to contribute to the discussion and I’ll just sit there and be cranky and unable to hear for an hour. The 12-1 one is only missable if there’s no reading quiz but even if there is I don’t really care. My TA loves me and she’ll make it better.
Bitch, bitch! Moan, moan! I may well take this down once I’m well again and read it with a clear mind. This is like sneezing on the Internet for all to encounter. Gross.
-@
I have got to get a more appropriate chair. January 26, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : music & concerts , 1 commentAs you may or may not know, I bought myself a keyboard for Christmas. This one, to be exact:
It’s got keys. It’s got buttons. It’s got a plug. It’s everything I need in a keyboard, considering the fact that I took maybe a year of piano lessons when I was little and the only things I can remember how to play are a little dinky polka and “From a Wigwam”, which is from this book, which we had in our piano bench when I was little.
Anyway, I’ve had this keyboard for a few weeks now and every time I walk by it, perched on four milk crates with a cheap barstool-style chair next to it, I feel a little pang of guilt because I play it as rarely as I suspected I would when I hesitantly clicked “Confirm order” all those weeks ago. I have a learn-to-play piano book and everything, which really exists to help me learn to read music. I can read the treble clef pretty well, from choir in high school, but I have trouble with the bass clef.
But like most “Learn to Play an Instrument!!” books, the first few chapters are boring as all hell. So I was in a piano doldrums for a while.
For a while, that is, until I had a Brilliant Piano-related Insight. I checked the Googles for “mario sheet music” and BAM, I was in business.
I haven’t tackled the main theme (you know, doodoodoot, doodoot, DOOT, doooot, DOOT doot doot, doot DOOT doodoot doodooDOODOOdooDOOdoodooDOOdoot…) yet, as I’m still kind of pianotarded, but my Super Mario Bros. Underwater Theme - which, musically, is substantially simpler and easier - is coming along rather nicely:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaL4D_nT99c]
… only not at all. That’s some clip I found on YouTube. My Underwater Theme is much, much further underwater than that one. It’s about four times slower than that and much less confident, and I still can’t play the left hand part and the right hand part at the same time. But the point is, it’s motivating me to actually play the darn thing, so it’s enough for me. So far.
There are lots of cool clips up there of random people playing random bits of Mario music on random instruments. It’s worth checking out.
-@
best part of waking up?
Posted by Abby T in : (pointless) humor , 2 commentsI have a post brewing.
Until then, here’s this, for fun:
-@
“I think what we’ve got here is a thing.” January 24, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : kitchen adventures, the idiot box , 1 commentToday I am home sick from school. I was fine yesterday until about four o’clock, at which point my body said, “You, to the couch. Right now. Or else!”
So I napped for a while and watched a thoroughly unremarkable episode of American Idol (I’m not sure anyone can ever top Renaldo Lapuz, seriously) and tried to do some homework, which resulted in what possibly was the most hilarious/delirious response to the Pardoner’s Tale in the history of the Canterbury Tales. A few Sudafeds and Advil PMs later, I was fast asleep at 9:30.
I tried to wake up to go to Stats. I really did! Obviously, it didn’t happen. So now the kitty and I are sitting on the couch watching the guys on Mythbusters build the biggest slingshot ever. I’m also wishing I could smell the popovers I just pulled out of the oven. Even better than being able to smell them would be having them be cool enough to eat. Mmm…
I think I picked the right day to stay home from school. Weather.com says it Feels Like -11 F today.
Tomorrow there’s a high of 23. I’ll go back to school tomorrow.
-@
minimize interruptions January 22, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : kitchen adventures, rants & raves , 2 commentsI realized something just now - something my mother would love to hear, and which will make just about everyone else go “um… duh? Okay, whatever.”
I realized that I really like cooking.
For starters, it’s a really great way to eat up (no pun intended) as much or as little spare time as you’ve got lying around, plus it has clear benefits after the fact in the form of leftovers. And if it’s low-impact, easy cooking, you can do it while doing something else - watching seventeen episodes of Scrubs, for example, not that I’ve done that, or listening to music.
I realized this on my walk home from class this morning, when I was stressing a little bit about how my evening’s going to go. I have a meeting at 5:00 followed directly by auditions at 6, in which I have to sit for a good five hours. I was thinking about how much work I have to do (because I was right about yesterday, I didn’t get anything done) and how I’m barely going to have time to eat (I used to be able to eat dinner at 4:45, but now that I’m out of the dining halls, dinner time is much closer to 8:00 for). Then it dawned on me that I can make use of the five hours sitting in auditions by reading (because I don’t actually have to make any casting decisions. The whole process is quite mindless for me).
And once I was hip to the concept of multitasking in auditions, dinner followed quickly behind.
So I was standing in my kitchen cooking up a pot of rice (that awesome dirty rice mix from a box, a brand that starts with a Z, Zatarain’s, or something) and making chickie dickie (this is a family secret, I have just decided) and slicing stuff up for a sandwich for immediate consumption, I realized that I was having a really good time.
I wasn’t doing anything particularly complicated - I think the highest degree of difficulty I ever attained was stirring the rice and eating my sandwich at the same time - but I really did enjoy it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my kitchen/living room wall is basically made of windows, and I have a really nice view. It isn’t of anything special - just the alley and some parking lots - but my building is on the west side of the block and I can see all the way to the southeast corner. It’s not a great view, but it’s a long one, a sweeping vista if you will, which makes it seem all the better. That coupled with the fact that the sky is a gorgeous blue today and with the fact that I’ve got a great set of speakers for my iPod in the kitchen made the whole time a great experience.
And now I’m happily full and I’ve got a dinner all packed to bring to school tonight so I won’t have to spend eight bucks on something nasty at Norris.
This gives me an idea for a future post, too, about my favorite cooking music.
I’ll save it for later.
-@
it has to be done January 21, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : games & systems, rants & raves , 1 commentI’m going to stop feeling guilty about doing nothing but posting links to other stuff on this here blog o’ mine. You know why? Because the Internet is a really big place and there’s a lot of really cool stuff out there, and if certain things end up chewing up a lot of my spare time, or making me laugh really hard, then darnit, I’m going to share them!
And by “them”, here, I specifically mean The Fancy Pants Adventure World 2. I never played World 1 - which refers to the first Fancy Pants game, not the first stage or world like the Mario games talk about them - and I discovered World 2 the other day through… something?… and boy did it eat up my time. Between baking muffins and a zillion hours of running auditions over at school, that is.
Here’s how the game works: you’re a stick figure with fancy pants and a bunny steals your ice cream. You run through worlds trying to get your ice cream back, and also playing a little shell soccer to get yourself new colors of pants to wear. It’s really simple, but what’s so fun about this little flash game is the physics and the movement. Just click the link and wait for the credits to go and jump around the opening menu a little bit. I could do backflips in there for hours.
Also the music’s really great.
Between Fancy Pants 2 and finishing Super Mario Galaxy, I have a hunch that I’m not going to get all the reading, laundry, apartment-cleaning, exercise, and email-writing done today that I meant to originally.
Not that I’m complaining.
-@
an appeal to feedreaders everywhere January 19, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : (pointless) humor , 1 commentMy young blog’s Best Day Ever was last Monday the 14th, when I had 43 pageviews. If you’re my sister you may recognize that number as your favorite number. Cool, right?
Guys, so far today I have 42 pageviews. Just one more will tie my all-time (okay, one-week) record.
In other news, I’m terribly sorry to have to point you in the direction of ridiculous things two days in a row, but Juli sent this my way and I think it’s brilliant: Super Terrific Japanese Pizza Time. It’s an ad for some Japanese pizza, and guys, it really is super terrific. The ad, not the pizza. I wouldn’t know about the pizza. But it sure does look super terrific.
What isn’t super terrific, you ask?
The phrase “3 degrees”, for one, especially when coupled with the phrase “before windchill”.
-@
the most wanted/unwanted songs January 18, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : (pointless) humor, music & concerts , 1 commentGuys.
Real update to come later this evening maybe, but seriously, first, go here. Some dude did some thing and amalgamated the World’s Most Wanted Song and the World’s Most Unwanted Song.
They’re spectacular.
Truly.
Ups to Ryan, through whom I found this gem.
-@
this is the morning report January 17, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : (pointless) humor, music & concerts, the idiot box , add a commentWe interrupt your daily grind to give you news on two very important subjects.
For starters, as of about 10:20 this morning, I am officially done with the Dental Epic upon which I embarked in September. Eighty jillion appointmens and nineteen gazillion dollars later, I’ve got a clean-ish bill of dental health and I don’t have to stop by 820 Davis again until March, ignoring the fact that I walk by the building every day on my way to school.
The other piece of important news is the fact that I found the YouTube of the American Idol segment I was laughing so hard about last night. Ladies and gentlemen, here it is:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwSOx_FYZkc]
It starts to get good around 3:15, when Randy and Paula start getting into it and dancing along at the table, and it only has up to go from there. Around 5:15 is where I completely lost it.
I could watch this video seventeen times a day and probably never stop laughing. Oh, Paula, you’re my favorite drunk TV bitch!
-@