I got a haircut today. The woman cutting it seemed super-enthusiastic. I think it looks good, you know, for a new haircut. It's hard to tell when it's still in that 'just cut' mode. I also had her shampoo it, which was amazing. It's the first time someone else has washed my hair in at least 15 years, and it felt so good. Totally worth it.
We just got a big dump of snow in the space of about a day. The city is still digging out, and it's such a pain to walk through. There are drifts up to about my knee in some places. Aside from my haircut, I stayed inside today, assessing where I am in terms of Christmas present shopping, reacquainting myself with Peggle, and watching various episodes of Project Runway, The Simpsons, and Family Guy. Good times! Now I'm going to go snuggle up in my comforter and watch more TV on the couch. Awesome.
I think that Swiss Chalet should have spent a little bit more time thinking about their new Festive Special commercial. Seriously: am I the only one who thinks there is something majorly creepy going on?
As expected, I have changed my NaNoWriMo plot somewhat. It's now, well, it's now about something completely different. There's a woman who is the daughter of a former big celebrity musician, and one day he holds a press conference, announces that he's dying, and that he also wants to see his daughter dance on a Dancing With the Stars-type reality dancing show. So the show invites her and she does it, and all the while she's trying to deal with being thrust into a bit spotlight, questioning the life she made for herself out of the spotlight and wondering if she's thrown that all away by doing the show, and dealing with her father.
Yeah, I'm still figuring out how to describe it.
Best of all, I was able to use most of what I had already written as flashbacks and diary entries.
I'm at about 12,000 words, more or less on schedule. So that's good, I think. I'm starting to feel better about the story, and when I fleshed it out it seemed to have legs enough to last for the whole 50,000 words. It's exciting, even though I'm approaching it a bit more this year like a duty than an excitement. I mean that I didn't have a story that I wanted to write, one that I really want to go get out. It's more like an exercise to me, I guess.
Anyway, to anyone else writing this month: Write on!
Happy November! I still haven't readjusted to the Fall Back time difference. I know it was just one hour, now I am just exhausted by, like, nine o'clock.
I'm watching Nathan Fillion right now in Castle. Man is he awesome. I have Firefly to watch soon.
Anyway, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and I am determined to 'win' after last year's...not winning. So that's taking up a bit of mind space as I try to figure out what I'm going to write about. I have a kind of idea right now, but I'm slowly realizing it's not going to be worth 50,000 words, so I'm going to have to bust out something crazy like "and then a spaceship landed and took all the main characters back to its home planet." Yeah, definitely something like that.
Fictional universes have lots of cool stuff in them. And sometimes I wish that that stuff was real. Some of it would be seriously awesome. Like the holodeck. Or transporters. Or those invisibility cloaks from Harry Potter. This list is mostly just entertainment stuff, though, books and movies and such. Someone should make it for real.
1. A Taste for Love, the Dracula musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2. The Man Inside Me, by Tobias Funke (on Arrested Development)
3. Satan's Alley, the Tobey Maguire/Kirk Lazarus trailer in Tropic Thunder
4. TGS with Tracy Jordan (on 30 Rock) (this was a close tie with The Rural Juror)
5. Angels with Filthy Souls (from Home Alone)
Keep the change, you filthy animal!
I feel like there is a fake book that I'm totally overlooking, a biography of some sort...it'll come to me later, no doubt.
Outside of coven blogs, here are some sites that I visit almost daily:
1.Television Without Pity The site isn't as great as it was in its heyday, and I don't spend as much time in the forums as I used to (always lurking, never as a poster), but I still use it to get caught up on tv shows and entertainment news.
2. STFU, Parents I'll be honest: there are some people that I'm friends with on Facebook that I've considered submitting to STFU Parents, a blog that chronicles the oversharing tendencies that a lot of parents seem to have. Do not read this blog while you're eating.
3. Cake Wrecks Don't read this one while you're eating, either, but because you'll laugh so hard looking at the mishappen cake disasters.
4. Awkward Family Photos I laugh a knowing laugh at this site, because my family could definitely fill this site all on our own.
5. Daytime Confidential Daytime soap opera spoilers, recaps, gossip, casting news, and podcasts are covered on this site. I like to read and see what's going on, even though I'm not currently watching any soaps.
So, my DVR has been the best thing that has come out of having my new job. Well, maybe not - I like having my own apartment, and a job itself, and a savings account. But my DVR brings me a lot of pleasure on a daily basis, over and over again. Here are five series that I have set up to record automatically:
1. Cougar 2. Boo 3. Happy wife, happy life 4. Baby mama 5. Slut
Cougar just seems like a way of trivializing women, especially older women, and by older that apparently means anyone over 30, and making a sex drive seem like a bad, predatory thing. It's just applied so indiscriminately. Boo, meaning girlfriend, just got on my nerves when I was reading a lot of TWoP forum posts about Natalia and Olivia on Guiding Light's last days, and the posters were always having Natalia and Olivia call each other "boo," something I think the characters would never do, and it got on my nerves. Happy wife, happy life comes up a lot on the TLC-esque shows that I watch, like "Say Yes to the Dress" and "Rich Bride, Poor Bride," and it's usually a way for an immature, spoiled girl to get her way. Baby mama ( and baby daddy, which maybe bothers me even more) is just bad grammar. Slut seems like it can't be said without some kind of sneer or derision, which is just as bad as the words itself.
You know when you get a word in your head, or you come across it somewhere, and it just sticks? And you find yourself saying it over and over and just caressing it with your mind? Okay, maybe not that last part (or maybe just me...), but some words just are really fun. Here are five words that I like to say:
So apparently I got a new keyboard and then promptly stopped writing. I've been thinking about it a lot, though. So in an effort to get in some more blogging time, I'm going to go short and frequent, starting with a whole week of new content. Starting today! And to keep me on theme, it's going to be lists of five things.
Today I'm starting out with five shows I watched when I was younger, television being a huge part of my life growing up and a huge part of who I am now. Here, with the help of youtube, are some things that formed my mind growing up.
1. Zoobilee Zoo
Truthfully, I only have the vaguest memories of this show about these wisecracking animals who lived together and sang and danced. In pre-youtube days, I would get the theme song in my head and think "Did I imagine that?" No. No, I did not.
2. Adventures in Wonderland
I think I've blogged about this one in the past, a 'modern' update of Alice in Wonderland with a White Rabbit on Roller Blades, the Tweedles as rappers, and Hatter and Hare as so much of a couple I could pick up on that even when I was little. They weren't fooling anyone. Lots of songs and dancing in this one, too, maybe three or four per episode.
3. Welcome to Pooh Corner
Are you detecting a "people in animal costumes" theme? I am, and I had never really put this together before. I guess this was cutting edge in the day - more exciting than regular people, less high tech than cartoons (right? I mean, they're just costumes). I have no idea. Anyway, you don't tend to see as much of this today. This was another update, and Tigger was kind of annoying, but not too much had changed. Also, I have no idea what a 'hoopty-pooh' time is.
4. Today's Special
I think I might have blogged about this one before, too. Jody worked in a department store, and Jeff was a mannequin that came to life if you put on his magic hat and said the magic word. Sam was the puppet night watchman, and Muffy was a mouse who talked in rhyme. And every night they would get together for adventures and learning. Jody and Jeff were another couple that I really wanted to get together, too.
5. Fred Penner's Place
I watched this one, but I never really liked it. Fred Penner was a musician, and he would frolic in the countryside and then climb through a log to this secret lair where he kept his guitar. And there was a wordbird, who gave us the word of the day, and that was the best part. The rest was just strange and did not interest me.
You know what they say: You don't know that you've got 'til it's gone. And it's so true. In my case, it was the letter keys of F and W. Possibly because I type WTF too much. But that's neither here nor there. I tried getting by without these letters, but it proved way too difficult. An online search indicated that fixing these keys would be a bit harder than I had anticipated, and I'm not quite ready to buy a new computer (although, frankly, this new computer has just been fairly disappointing from the start and has serious flaws and will have to be replaced soon). So I thought, hmm, maybe I could just get a new keyboard?
Turns out you can. I went and got an el-cheapo model (about $10), mostly because I wasn't sure if it would align with my laptop. I bought it and the saleswoman (not even the one who was ringing it up but one who just kind of butt herself in) asked if I wanted a warranty and I said no, and she said "UH, are you SURE?" in a "DUH, DUMB ASS" kind of voice, like I had just told her that the capital of Alberta is Venezuela. I assured her that I was sure, and she gave me a bit more sales pitch and I was just like, "yeah, no, wrap it up, please." And I went on my merry way.
Anyway, long story short(er), the new keyboard works and I have access to W and F (as well as TAB) and I am all ready to keep plugging away with my new fully-functioning keyboard. Hurrah!
The autumn TV season is here, and I've been getting into a number of good shows, both new and returning. My thoughts:
Glee I meant to catch the premiere episode that aired last spring, but I missed it, and then it got so much hype over the summer that I thought, "It can't be that good." But I gave it a chance and yes, it sat on my DVR for a few weeks, but then I finally saw it and I really liked it. It's funny and smart and there's singing.
90210
Last season kind of got off to a boring start, but this season it's back and soapier than ever. I am enjoying it a lot more now. I haven't gotten into the new Melrose Place, yet, though.
The Beautiful Life: TBL
The title was the most intriguing thing about this Ashton Kutcher-produced soap drama about models. why the extra letters? No idea. I wanted this to have a soapy badness to it, a total guilty pleasure, but it was just bad. And the 1st show to be canceled in the new season. Sorry, Mischa Barton.
Gossip Girl This year it's Gossip Girl Goes to College, and it's having a hard time keeping my interest. It's disconcerting to see their elaborate world come up against the 'real' world at NYU, and there's so much long lost son drama that I'm not that much into, and...yeah. I haven't given up on it, though.
Community I hadn't planned on watching this new Joel McHale NBC sitcom, but it came on after The Office and I got sucked into it. It's very funny and different from the other sitcoms out there. It's about a successful lawyer whose not-quite-legit undergraduate degree is uncovered and must go to a local community college to get a replacement degree. In the premiere episode he creates a Spanish study group to impress a girl, and that plan doesn't work but they do end up sticking together in a way that's more amusing than contrived. Plus: Chevy Chase!
I think that's good for now. Anyone else watching some good new shows?
I love my blog. A lot. Sometimes, too much. But mostly, just enough. I write about anything, including the people in my life. Sometimes I give them clever name-disguising nicknames, sometimes I don't. I'm not out to make trouble, though. So I write about me, about my life, as boring as it can be. I take requests, and I love comments. Any other questions, read my profile and my archives...that pretty much sums me up.
