YEah, I'm drunk blogging

Shut up, it makes awesome sense.

My friend who runs Macabre Mansion is bitching about me never writing a review for the website I'm supposedly "sci-fi editor" of, so in retaliation I will write a review while slowly getting mroe and morre drunk off of red wine. an important thing to know is I've already had a full glass and 2/3 of a 750ml bottle of red wine.

So, this is my review of "Moby DIck: 2000"

Firs,t I need to actulally watch it. hold on.

screw that, I'm watching Adam off myth-busters talk about failure. I lvoe it too much to stop it, even though he's in the Q&A section. Which I guess proves my friend's point about not reviewing.

Fuggetaboutit.

Here's why I like Adam... whatever his last name is.  ^.^

He has twins. I am a twin. (twin WIN)

He's nice and not nearly as scary as Jamie (non-Cthulu beard WIN).

I met him all too briefly at D*C 2010 (He signed my Zombie shoe) I have a 3 second video, but come on, I'm blogging drunk. don't expect an upload at this pint~ ha! point. (MEETWIN)

I feel like if i send him this blog post via twitter, he'd actually read it. (crap. now i'm gonna do this)

HE's alright about talking about failure in a very real sense, and I'm so sure of failure in my life that I can really identify. plus, he's just really accessible to his fans without being creepily pandering, if that makes sense. I feel like I could buy him a drink if ever he came to Birminghame without him either taking advantage or being squicked. but come on, At this point, I do not need to be drinking additionally.

then again, I facebook challenged myself to finish the bottle. And I want to, now. so I think a will.

in a weird side note, sometimes "a will" and "I will" actually do sound identical issuing from my lips due to random southern accent. not often. Definitely not enough to make the televised "southern belle" accent hold any real-life water.

yeah. I'ma totes post this now.

Also, hats off ot Allie Brosh of hyperboleandahalf.com for doing it first (to my caring) and best. cheers.

bonus, no cussing. I rock.

In other news - random

In other, more random news, Patrick Rothfuss (the author of the ever-so-awesome Name of the Wind and Wise Men's Fear, the first two out of three Kingkiller Chronicles) looks almost exactly like my big brother. It's kind of creepy.

Patrick Rothfuss

My brother with his Christmas Monocle (his beard is longer now)

He sounds nothing like my Big Bro audibly, but his blog entries and responses to interviews is again, freakily similar. It makes for a weird mental disconnect when I hear youtube clips of Pat Rothfuss talking.

Like this clip from W00tstock 3.0:

It's weird. That is all.

EDIT: Patrick Rothfuss actually recently (as in today - or rather yesterday by the time I post this since it's like 1:49 in tomorrow morning) did a "machine gun Q&A" where he'd answer randomly questions fired (equally randomly) in the comments box. I wrote a question inspired by my ever-pressing fear of being sucked into an alternate dimension inadequately prepared, and he Totes McGoats answered it. 

And again, his answer is freakily similar to what Big Bro would say. Also brings up the reason 2m2l and i always, ALWAYS knocked on his door to wake him up rather than just walking in unannounced. To some people, pants are always optional.

Be Prepared!

The other day, I was wearing a button-up shirt under a brown halter top dress from J. Crew (what I think of as my "Maria Von Trapp" outfit), when I had the sudden realization that I would be completely unprepared if I were to suddenly fall into a mystical or dimensional vortex and end up in another plane of existence.

Brown dress + white button-up = not just for picnics anymore

This was strange to me.

Not the thought itself, but the fact that I was unprepared. I was the kind of girl who, growing up, only began to use a purse so I could put handy things in it in case I was ever abruptly abducted from reality. Common items included a length of string, yarn, or rope (depending on what I could find), scissors, shiny things (in case currency was different), and a butt-ton of writing utensils (because I was a firm believer in "the pen is mightier than the sword").

I had a queen-sized bed (that my brothers could unfortunately fit under), but a twin-sized body (pun completely intended). Because of this, I tended to store (or just lose) items in the areas of the bed I didn't take up with... me. Usually, this would just be a bunch of books, 'cause I'd read 4 or 5 at a time, and would frequently fall asleep in the middle of a page. But there were always some "just-in-case-of-dimensional-travel" things too.

Socks, for one. For some reason, I was sure I'd need an extra pair of socks in a different world. Also my nunchucks/college toy flippy things.

And after watching Labyrinth, I'd always have some cheap shiny jewelry for bribes (see previous note on currency).

These days, my bed is small enough for just me, and close enough to the ground so that no brother can grab my ankles without first digging a trench for his body underneath (it doesn't even matter that they both live in different states, they'd find a way). However, I'm still on the lookout for opportunities to become the main character in a sci-fi/fantasy novel. My car has become my new stockpile of "just-in-case-of-dimensional-travel" things.

It comes in handy more often than you think. Just last weekend, I was the heroine of the hour, because I had a roll of toilet paper, Halloween costume makeup, superglue, old earphones, packing tape, and scissors in my car.

What's funny about it is I really don't have anything in case of actual emergency. My jumper cables are crap, and I have absolutely no idea where my spare tire is, much less what I'd do if I blew a tire (other than calling my dad, obviously).

Since I have no plan on how to end this post gracefully, I'm just going to let it awkwardly peter out with this:

Next time you can't sleep, start thinking of what would happen if you were to be sucked into an alternate world carrying only what is in your bed, car, or purse.

I bet it changes a couple of your packing habits.

DragonCon 2011

I went to Dragon*Con 2011 - it was a BLAST!

But super exhausting as well. I need to attempt to get everything down before I start forgetting crap. More pictures and videos will be added as I manage to upload them.

My crowd left Thursday after work and drove to Cartersville, GA from Birmingham - which caused some craziness about 3 hours into the trip. Next thing I knew, we were attempting to sing Hotel California with a Jamaican accent. BFFC didn't know all the words, so I was shouting them out as quickly as possible before each line started; also, we didn't have the Eagles on CD and there was no iPod adapter, so I just had it cranked all the way up on the little sucker.

I met Misha Collins of Supernatural fame, and almost fainted.

I bought a corset, a teal wig, and several siege machines from "Siege the Day," as well as a copy of Bone for half price.

I'm kind of awesome.

I played "Who's the Werewolf" until 4:30 AM, then had to strategically time my journey back to the Westin to coincide with some Utilikilts so as to avoid the creepy creepster hanging out and waiting for me to walk by him.

I made it 2/3rds of the way through a marathon of The Guild and got to see Clara and Tinkerballa from the first row as they came to thank us for loving their show.

I saw a great exhibition from the New York Jedi, and shared my Cheezits with several of the performers.

I got to see the most recent (at that point) episode of Doctor Who a full hour before anyone else who watches BBC America (except for the 500 or so people also watching with us). None of us heard what Matt Smith (the 11th Doctor for those of you who have the poor taste to not know who he is) had to say in his special pre-recorded greeting for D*C between "Hello Dragon*Con," and "Enjoy the show!" because we all FREAKED OUT to see him. Since there were Absolutely No Recording Devices allowed on pain of expulsion from the convention, we may never know what he said.

I also ruined the big plot twist for the people in my row 'cause I blurted out what was happening right when Amy said "it's only wood" (that's what he said).

I got the theme song from Tetris stuck in my head for most of the weekend, successfully got random strangers to join in on singing "Living on a Prayer" while walking down a hallway, sang in the Elf Choir, and tore down the house with some stranger named Stephen or maybe Keith on the song "Love Shack" during Klingon Karaoke.

I posed with the TARDIS at 1 AM (the TARDIS wearing an evil mustache), got a personalized copy of a comic book as well as a picture with the author, said hi to Macabre Mansion friends Billy Tackett and  wife as well as Tracy and Ben Eller (from World of Strange fantastic apparel), and was in awe at the stage presence of Pandorica Celtica.

I watched D*C TV, caught snippets of the movie nights for Star Trek, was alternatively freezing and blazingly overheated, caught a few really quick glimpses of the parade, sat in on a Stargate: Universe panel that made me want to give the show another shot, and joined in with a roomful of snarky fans as we MST3K'd Sharktopus.

I saw Whil Wheaton (sorry, Family Guy influence) Wil Wheaton sign Colin Ferguson's man-boob (or "moob") during one of the Eureka panels, watched Something Something Dark Side while waiting in line for a panel on the casting of The Hobbit by TORn, and wrestled through suffocating crowds while toting railroad tracks tied to my back.

I met up with someone who had the EXACT SAME COSTUME as me, which was odd ('cause it included railroad tracks tied to your back...), successfully avoided giving blood the entire weekend, and saw Gareth David Lloyd from afar.

Oh, and I've already bought my tickets for next year, of course.

The Book - daddy edition

I promised my dad the other day (in this case, a couple years ago), that I'd write a book for him for Christmas.

Luckily, I didn't say which Christmas. 

For a while, every time we did anything together (or rather, any time he did something completely hilarious or outrageous) I'd tell him, or he'd tell me "this is going in the book."

So that's what the tag "The Book" is about.

The Monster Under My Bed - or why brothers are evil

When I was a kid, the books series Goosebumps by R.L. Stine scared the ever loving crap out of me. When I read them, my overly vivid imagination would eventually leave me in my closet with the lights on, because if you're in the closet, the monster can't fit in there. I was 12 or so (shut up, I had a really really good imagination).

Goosebumps the TV show, on the other hand, usually didn't phase me. Sure, the music was creepy, but anything put on by Nickelodeon at the time wasn't that frightening in terms of special effects, and the show always showed too much of the monster (an interesting side note is that I felt completely opposite about the book and television series Are You Afraid of the Dark? The books were mediocre but the show scared me to kingdom come).

There was a notable exception, however. There was a made-for-TV movie that was along the same lines called Don't Look Under the Bed that has left an indelible mark on my subconscious. In one scene a girl is sitting on the edge of her bed and something grabs her ankles and drags her away under the bed into some kind of horror world. That image still kind of freaks me out. Probably because it's scary as hell. The fact that I scare easily isn't a problem, though. The fact that I had brothers who knew I scared easily WAS.

Occasionally their antics would backfire - like the time they tried to play upon the fact that I had just watched The 6th Sense by opening all of the kitchen cabinets and putting the chairs on the table (I had gone straight to bed, or rather, my closet with the lights on and a non-scary book, so they just got yelled at the next day by our parents instead).

Occasionally, however, they'd scare me and scar my psyche for life.

My twin brother, 2min2late, managed to get me really really well this one time through a cunning use of electronics combined with sheer evil. To understand the depths of this masterpiece, you've got to understand the layout of the house. We had a great room with the master bedroom that my parents shared off underneath the stairs leading up to the second floor. All of us kids were on the balcony level. At the top of the stairs, 2min2late's bedroom was immediately to your left, while the bathroom we shared was directly in front. If you turned right, my Big Bro's bedroom with its attached bathroom was to your left in what was originally supposed to be attic space, and my bedroom was directly ahead. A crappily drawn MS paint version is below (and yes, I'm aware Hyperbole and a Half does MS Paint drawings. She's much more talented than I.).

Perspective is optional.

2M2L had been talking to me prior to my entrance into the bathroom, so I knew he was in his bed. He had also purchased a crappy little remote control for his bedside lamp, that apparently had fantastic range. After I entered the bathroom, he quickly stuffed pillows under his covers to look like he was still in it at first glance, and got into position in my room. When I exited the bathroom (above in blue), I said "Good night, bro" into his room, and he turned off his bedside lamp from inside my bedroom. 

At this time, I had a queen-sized bed. One that could fit a small and decidedly evil, snickering brother underneath. This is important.

Thinking my brother had gone to bed without saying goodnight, I journeyed into my room completely unaware of the horror that awaited me. I got to my bed and sat down - then promptly lost my shit when 2M2L grabbed my ankles and tugged. 

I know I kicked him in the face. He's really lucky I didn't manage to make it all the way to my weapons stash of those flippy thingys that were all the rage that I had decided would make pretty good nun chucks. 

College fad, or deadly weapon? You decide.

I screamed to high heaven, of course. What's funny is I don't usually scream unless I know for a fact someone will hear me - roller coasters, I'm terrified and absolutely silent. Roach on my own, completely quiet as I break out the flamethrowers. Roach with friends or knowing someone's close by, and let the Black Canary commence.

2min2late ended up in less trouble than I would like - while my parents were woken out of a sound sleep, my dad thought it was too hilarious and deviously planned to really punish.

I ended up making a request for a twin-sized bed that is too close to the ground to fit under for the next 5 years' worth of Christmases. I still sleep in it.

The Roach Mafia

The other day, in my old apartment...

Wait, lets back up in a horrible show of writing flow and continuity so I can explain something. I say "the other day" when I mean an indeterminate time in the past. It substitutes for phrases such as "last year," "two days ago," and "earlier today," even though earlier today definitely shouldn't qualify as "other" unless something truly bizarre went down like an alien invasion or a nomination for president. You know, something world changing (for me, obviously - I'm narcissistic like that). In this particular case, "the other day" means early July or late June, after BFFC moved in, during the middle of the summer.

So, the other day, in my old apartment, a roach flew in while BFFC and I were about to make the trek to take out the garbage (I like to take it to the dumpster even though i get charged for the convenience of a "valet" can every month). This is in the middle of summer in the South, so roaches are freakin' everywhere - to the point that someone with a real debilitating fear of them would be in a hermetically sealed room in the fetal position, waiting for the good drugs to take the crawly things away. There are tree roaches (the big mofos that are like, 2 inches long),  those little end-of-your-thumb-sized red roaches that pile up in little suicidal piles around light sources that for some reason I always associate with the bathrooms at state park campgrounds, what optimistic people call "June bugs" which are actually roaches in a clever, shiny disguise, and your standard "Oh my sweet Lord kill it with a hammer*" roaches that are found in gross apartments year-round. I do not have a gross apartment most of the time, but this particular apartment is at ground level and set back into a hill, so while air conditioning tended to be cheaper due to earth insulation, bugs tended to be a serious issue because I was invading on their buggy kingdoms.

New Job!

I just got a new job!

I'm a receptionist at CloverCo, a company that's got a corporate structure, a great attitude, and a relaxed view on blogging while at work. I am so excited to be here, I can barely stand it.

I've also caved and gotten myself a twitter account... so now I'm a twit.

Oh, and I've a roommate, BFFC (Best Friend from College), and we're moving to a new place, but there'll be this period of about a week where we'll be moved out of our old place and not able to move into the new... so that'll be fun.

Yay temporary homelessness! :)