Last night was the Scissor Sisters concert at the Electric Factory here in philly. It was soooo much fun. We got there really early, and the place was dead. I was worried it wouldn’t be a good turn out, but by time they took the stage the place was packed.
We, for some reason, just climbed to the top/back of the place. The upstairs is where the adults go to drink, the downstairs for the underage and those who want to mosh. John kept commenting how everyone seemed so olllllddddd. I said you were the one who wanted to come all the way up here!
My camera/phone didn’t get really good photos when they were playing. Too many bright lights and it kept washing out. I did get some good ones during songs they had trippy light shows going.
I also got a few good vids of them playing. Here are two of them . . . .
So I had originally been planning to bring Facebook sometime after next week, which is when I go back to work, as well as my birthday. However I realized today that I was surviving without it just fine (and Twitter too). I thought maybe it would be a good idea not to race back into the addiction. I also hung out with some school BFFs, and they too had since pretty much given up on the thing (one had gone offline as well).
Following up on a previous posting, I did finally bite the bullet and book a cruise. Well I should say I put a deposit down on one. I, and friends, have till the end of October to decide if we will go. The boat I wanted was filling up, and I was afraid the price would just keep going up at this point (which it was when I booked it).
So the date the final payment for the cruise is due is October 27th . . . Which in fact is 2 months from now. I’ve decided that this is “the date” to aim for on all fronts. I had said I wouldn’t book a cruise till I defended, and there was a reason for that, aside from it being a reward. If I defend anytime before January 21st (or whenever the Spring semester starts), I do not have to pay another semester of tuition. If things dragged out, I might not be able to go on vacation in lieu of defending.
For me defending before that date is a must on many levels. First, I really don’t want to go into another new year with this over my head, I want to be done! Second, I’m tired of tuition! I don’t know if I’ve ever stated it, but I did not take out loans to put myself through school. I worked and saved to pay everything on my own, including having to fund my own research (cause I didn’t get initial grants I applied for, and didn’t want to wait around to try again a year later).
Therefore, October 27th is the date. I want a defense date set by then (or at least a projected one). This means getting the final draft done and in tip-top shape. For once I am actually feeling good about things. I just came off another 2 week writing camp and am feeling really good about where things are, and where I can be by that date. Make no mistake, it will take hard core discipline, and I might not be having much fun at all the next two months 🙂 However usually when I sit down to write and edit, I am overcome with panic attacks and/or get frustrated. I amassed far too much data for my dissertation, probably in hindsight enough for 2 of them. Dealing with this, and the fact that I’m a perfectionist, hasn’t been fun 🙂 But right now I feel like I’m over the hump, and I am managing it all pretty well. I just have to continue this feeling when I go back to work (luckily for once I’m not teaching a new class, so I’m hoping it will be easy).
Perhaps I will consider October 27th as the date for my return to Facebook too? Or perhaps I should say the latest point I’ll return to it. Here is hoping final drafts get turned in, approved and dates set far before then 🙂
Anyways, right now? I’m off to do a little more writing, then tonight to see the Scissor Sisters in concert! I do in fact feel like dancing too 🙂
I made eggplant parm tonight using my own TopsyTurvy grown eggplants and tomatoes. I did add in some store bought sauce and cheese, so sue me. However it turned out awesome. So yummy! Oh and I originally fried the battered eggplant in my redi-set-go. So it was really a double seen-on-tv meal!
Wow, a very packed and fun filled convention. Let me tell you my ass is laying on the couch all day today to recover. Late nights, fun fun fun, even some fun drama!
Friday night I met up with my friends Michelle and Nick, who travel down from North Jersey for the convention. We decided to try and deal with the lines and meet as many people as we could that night, but in reality didn’t really get to all that many people. I think we waited the longest for “The Boondock Saints.” I have to be honest, I only saw half the movie, and I wasn’t sure how it fit into a “Horror Movie” convention. I only really wanted to meet Sean Patrick Flannery. I got him to sign a “Young Indy” photo, but because it was getting late, they decided for photos to just have us all do a group photo with all the starts.
I will say, after talking to them, hearing them talk, and the fact that they really hung out with all their fans, I’m gunna have to finish the movie. It’s not that it was bad, but it’s not my normal cup of tea, and I shut it off one night to go to bed. I do hear the 2nd one stunk royally, and they only gave hints of a possible third one (that might take place in between one and two I think they said).
We also met Felissa Rose that night. What a hoot she was! She was Angela in “Sleepaway Camp.” She was so funny and had such cool stories to tell. Michelle then got it in her head that I must have a certain item at home I could bring Felissa, which would make taking pictures even more humorous and fun for her. Felissa thought it was a hysterical idea . . . I said I knew of a store and would see if I could get one. However shucks, time wasn’t on my side! I will admit, I did not fancy the idea, it made me uncomfortable! If you know the movie, you can probably guess what the item is 🙂
Friday night was the first bit of drama at the hotel. After all the signing was done, everyone hangs out in the loby and restaurant/bar at the hotel. A couple showed up in wedding attire and was taking photos with all the people who dress up and walk around as characters. I don’t know if they specifically got married because of/at the convention, or if they just wanted the photos for fun. The honeymoon didn’t last long though . . . as later a mysterious couple was having a fight and throwing clothes from the 5th floor window of the hotel. The cops came, and it turns out it was the newlyweds!
Saturday was a new day, and I was beat. I got very little sleep the night before, so I was dragggging. However it was a great day and I met a lot of cool people. Sadly I still need to practice my smiling as apparent from some photos 🙂
Much of the cast from “Pet Semetery” was there. Meeting Dale Midkiff was a treat, cause he was the sexy in that movie! I also told him that I got sucked into alllll those 8 million “Love Built Me An Outhouse” movies on Hallmark. He said “I am so sorry!” He asked if I saw the first one with Kathrine Heigl, saying that was his favorite. That to me says something, cause there are always rumors out there about her attitude and difficulty.
Denise Crosby was a hoot and like Felissa, had soooooo many good stories to tell. I really should have asked her to film a message for John, something like “John, if you didn’t work 24/7, you could have met Tasha Yar.” John is a big Trekkie. She also had a stuffed “Church” cat from the movie to pose with in photos if you wanted.
Finally there was little Miko Hughes, who played baby Gage in the movie. However he’s best known as the kid who said “Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.” It was fun to hear him talk about the few memories he had of filming the movie, as well as Denise and Dale’s story’s about him on set.
Of course the big star of the convention, aside from the Boondocks, was John Carpenter himself. It was so cool to meet the guy who wrote and directed my most favorite movie ever “The Fog!” His Q&A session was also amazing, as he is just so hilarious and has a mouth on him. I also got to meet Ty Mitchell, who played Andy in “The Fog,” Adrienne Barbeau’s son.
Finally . . . I got the answer to a question that has always bothered me, and one that even google has been unable to answer (except for what people have assumed). In the movie Andy wakes his mom up to show her the neat gold coin he found, which then turned into a piece of wood. He then asks if he can have a “Stomach pounder and a coke.” What the hell is a stomach pounder? I have always wanted to know. People on google believe that it is code for pop rocks, alluding to the myth that Mikey from the Life cereal commercials died while eating pop rocks and drinking a coke. Others say it’s a QuarterPounder, but with a name change as they didn’t want to pay royalties. Not so though! It is actually a small single serving heavy twinkie/poundcake-like confection. The name was something between mom and son, a family dish/nickname for the item. Mystery solved!
However meeting one guest, someone who I was not expecting to be there as she wasn’t on the original guest list, blew my mind. It turned out she was John Carpenter’s rep/agent, and was there for him, but the convention people told her she should just bring some photos and set up a table in the room with him just in case. Good thing she did, cause I was one of the people who wanted to meet her. Seriously, I think she probably made the whole convention for me. Not that the others weren’t awesome, but this was a surprise treat from my childhood.
Oh yes, I am talking about Miss Erin Gray, Colonel Wilma Derring herself! Next to “Wonder Woman,” “Buck Rogers” was probably my most favoritist (kid word) show to watch when I was little. I of course had to have her sign the “Space Vampire” photo for me, as I remember that episode used to terrify me (along with the guy with the glowing hands).
After all the signatures, line standing and Q&A sessions we went to, it was time to relax a bit before calling it a night. Michelle and Nick had decided to stay Saturday night too, which they normally don’t. They booked a different cheaper hotel a bit later on though. It was right down the road, they thought it would be okay. Thought being the key word . . . The problem is once you pass the hotel the convention is, you are caught between Cherry Hill and Philadelphia, and in between is Camden and the outskirts of Camden. It gets ghetto fast, and this hotel was Gheeeeettttooooo!
From the minute we pulled in and walked around looking for the lobby, we knew it was bad. There was one hotel/building clearly where the (white trash) guests were staying, and a second separate hotel that had clearly been converted into a weekly/monthly renters complex. We got the room key and were afraid to go in. At first it didn’t seem bad, oh it had not been updated in decades, but it didn’t seem bad.
Then the music from the room next door began pounding through the walls. Then I noticed the baby cockroach crawling on the mini-refrigerator. Michelle dared to use the bathroom, screaming “There are pubes on the floor!” Then for some unknown reason we found toilet paper wadded in the doorframe corner, a long with a hell of a lot of cobwebs in the ceiling corner. Nick said he’d forgo the 75 bucks and they could drive home, but Michelle took charge and got them a full refund. Oh did I mention as we were leaving a domestic dispute occurred? Apparently some white trash guy smacked his girlfriend, and they all started screaming and getting the neighbors who they apparently knew involved in it. YEah, it was time to go!
We just went back to the convention hotel and hung out for a bit. Many of the stars were in the lobby just talking to people, taking photos and what not. Then there was some poor unfortunate kid who drank far too much and put on a show for everyone. We all watched him try and keep from falling down, and we were just waiting for him to puke everywhere. He eventually vanished, to where nobody knows. He swore to everyone though he wasn’t driving. He kept trying to call people on his phone until some girl took it and put it in his pocket saying he didn’t seem to be having much luck on the phone.
I had a migraine coming on today, and was basically out of meds. I thought I could make a quick trip to the store to get some, as well as pick up a few other things. At the time it seemed the headache wasn’t that bad. I was wrong, in the middle of the store I got hit hard, to the point where I thought I might toss my cookies right in the frozen foods aisle. I just grabbed the meds at that point and headed to the check out with what few things were in my cart.
Of course the fact that a woman elsewhere in the store was shopping while her child had a screaming fit didn’t help. It also didn’t help that no matter where in the store you were, you could hear this child. Then of course she ends up right next to me in the check out with her screaming child, and she is doing nothing about it. She is simply ignoring this child’s fit.
Now I know a little bit about child rearing techniques, and I know one school of thought is to ignore your child’s tantrums. However not when they are doing it in public! Shut the kid up or LEAVE. You are a public nuisance!
You know when she finally started yelling at the kid to stop it? As she was LEAVING the store in front of me with all her paid groceries! Really lady?
I should have taken her photo right in her face and told her it was because I was posting her on the internet.
I was in such pain, and wanted so badly to unleash a “Christmas Story” like tirade of obscenities on this woman. I also had decided if I puked, I would aim it at her and her screaming child. But I didn’t. And then when I got home I saw a story on the news . . . .
Apparently a man in Wisconnsin did just that to a woman who was in the express checkout with FAR too many items. Been there, done that, see it ALL the time! He of course went a little overboard, calling her fat and disgusting. I wouldn’t have resorted to personal attacks beyond their stupidity and inability to either read, count, or use common sense 🙂
You know what happened? He got cited and fine over $400 dollars for disorderly public conduct.
I’ve been trying to get back to a normal sleeping schedule. I begin teaching in 2 weeks, but fortunately my classes are mid to late day. The spring semester I’m not so lucky, very early AM classes. I might have to finally learn to like coffee.
Anyway, lets just say my dreams the past few nights have not been good. I keep getting attacked by homicidal maniacs or crawled all over by bugs. One night I actually kicked all the sheets off the bed.
I don’t know if it’s stress, the “all natural sleeping pills” I decided to try, or Monster Mania anticipation. Maybe all of the above?
So I am making a bigger post on my earlier post about deleting Facebook/Twitter and the like, which was just posted quickly by me during one of my many frantic moods 🙂
….. Okay so basically I had intended to write out all that has been going on and stressing me out, but it’s too much, it will come off as too whiny, and you don’t need to hear it all. Basically same shit different day . . . dissertation writing stress, living off saving stress, upcoming going back to work stress . . . add in the insane heat waves this summer which have just been migraine inducing as well as sitting around and gaining back way too much weight . . . yes I’m a barrel of laughs right now. There is also vacation stress, as whether we go on a vacation in January is yet again up to me. Part of me knows I’ll need a break come January (and I did have a great time last year), the other part of me knows I don’t want that on my credit card bill right now. I’ve been monitoring prices and right now they are going UP, so here is hoping they go back DOWN later on. Oh and then there is John having to work to 9-10pm every other night as well, so I never see him anymore.
So basically all this stress ends up leading to me breaking down and/or blowing up . . . and this last time I went and destroyed all my social networks. I deleted Twitter, Facebook as well as all the check-in apps like Gowalla and Foursquare too.
In part, I realized if I’m gunna be nuts online and vent on these places, I don’t need complete strangers knowing I’m nuts. Twitter/Facebook (because it’s easy to link them) are just too easy to go to and post a quick rant. The blog still takes time . . . signing in, writing the post, proofing it, etc . . . Twitter/Facebook it’s basically just bitch’n’go really. I decided 1) I don’t need to just be using these things as a bitch fest, cause nobody wants to read that and 2) I have way too many people on them I have no idea who they are, so they don’t need to know my private biz-nass.
So I just went on a deletion frenzy 🙂 I guess I should have just deleted people off my lists . . . but somehow at the time I thought this was easier. I know people loved the twitter feed on the blog, but the problem is for it to work properly with the blog, your twitter account needs to be open. That means anyone can sign up and follow you, and unless you take the time to go in and block them . . . they know your biznass. Also for many people Twitter has seems to lost its appeal. The people I got on there to start following don’t use it as much anymore, and most of the updates I see anymore are people spamming 10 news article/links every hour.
As for Facebook . . . well before Twitter/iPhone I never really updated my facebook much. It was too much trouble. I also just approved anyone who asked to be my friend, even if I didn’t really know them, so now I have 300 friends and probably only can really identify who 50 of them are . . . 25 of which I’ve probably actually met in real life.
While my twitter (and 4square etc) accounts got irretrievably deleted, I did save Facebook from utter destruction. I just have too many childhood and obscure friends I’ll never be able to find again on there (though I’m an easy google if they need to find me, the benefit of years of the soap page). So at some point my Facebook will be back. However I’ve decided I need to take a hatchet to my Facebook. I need to go through my friends list and if I don’t recognize the name – – – DELETE! I also need to make lists of trusted friends and general friends, so I can decide who sees what. I need to learn to deny people’s friends requests if I don’t know who they are, and not be afraid to delete/block people – which so far I’ve never done to anyone. However if I’m posting sensitive and personal stuff, I don’t want strangers seeing it!
On the upside, my blog has gotten a lot more attention without Facebook and Twitter 🙂
PS Monster Mania this weekend! So I should be having some fun 🙂
Update, my mom didn’t understand this post. So for those who haven’t heard of Antoine Dodson, now an internet sensation, here is the original report that started it all.
And of course the ever popular auto-tuned dance remix!
P.S. Antoine has set up a website where he is selling t-shirts, the song on itunes and other kitschy stuff. All proceeds go to helping Antoine and his family to get out of the projects.
I can’t take much more excitement or my heart might give out. I was just about to watch a movie when I heard the most horrific sound. Ran to look, an a car was parked on the corner of the lawn feet away from our porch, narrowly missing a giant tree.
1) Nobody is dead
2) I no longer have to cut those bushes and saplings growing there down
3) I was moments ago right there with the dogs – scary!
Jason or something scary would be fun to set up here haha! I actually now have to motivate enough to cut everything else down, cause this looks pretty bad from the road.
