Childhood Reminiscing and Current Events

In recent years, I've become hyperaware of my patterns and cycles, and going back through these old posts...damn, they're so highlighted, it's almost embarrassing. Almost.

In the past few weeks, there have been signs and synchronicities that ask the question:

 "What were you into as a child?"

And just today, listening to a podcast, they were discussing being kids and tape recording silly skits and doing kid shows or writing interview scripts and recording them with their siblings and buddies.

As I was editing a couple of videos for Pulp City Magazine, I started thinking about my first Kodak camera, and commandeering my dad's tape recorder and writing silly plays and radio shows with my brother or just recording us while we played with matchbox cars and his racetracks, or with my bestie, April, while we played with my Grandpa Dollhouse or Barbies. Some of those dumb pics I still have. I wish I still had those tapes.

As soon as my mom's church, where she worked, updated her office computer, that old DOS machine became mine and came with a dot matrix printer. It looked like this one but had yellow/gold type.

I journaled on that thing for years and printed it all out before we updated our home computer. The printer wasn't calibrated and printed over the page perforations, so I have the 100+ pages all still mostly intact. Maybe we'll go down that memory lane for like, Throwback Thursdays or something. 

It's been fun working at 903 Mills Market* and talking with the kids about how great a time it was to be alive during BetaMax vs VHS and dial-up internet and watching music flow from vinyl records, to 8-track tapes, to cassette tapes, to CDs, minidisk players, .WAV players to mp3 players (and listing all the streaming download sites), and then so many of us came back to vinyl. 

Point is, I've always been into media.

In the past 10+ years, I've come through for a lot of you, but I've also failed on some projects because I let myself get distracted by life instead of focusing on the work.

I apologize to those of you I've failed or disappointed. I apologize to me too.

I admit to the self-sabotage and have been doing the work to make changes and put an end to certain cycles and patterns, and in turn, finding a peaceful balance and a renewed sense of ambition, motivation, and inspiration.

And so now, I'm on this incredible startup team for Pulp City and we did our first food feature yesterday and it feels so good to be back in it. I went in thinking it was just going to be me & Dom with a couple of cameras, and then, all of a sudden, we had a 4 person crew with so much being covered. It was an absolute dream come true. Seeing the footage they were getting and being able to put together a really good idea about how to cut it, and how great we all worked together....  It was just really inspiring and we're so excited to show you the things we've been working on.  We're slated to launch next month for Orlando's 150th birthday!

If you're a local business owner or know someone with a local business, get in touch with us and we'll do something fun together!!!

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*I'll tell you stories and introduce you to my 903 Mills Market family very soon. They're the best.

POP BOMB VID!!!

BOOM!!*

OK...now that you've seen it...

Here are some fun things to look for whenever you go back to watch it again, like we all know you will:

• At the beginning, we have 2 cameras, so you're getting what Trina's seeing inside the obstacle course while Johnny's outside filming. This only happened at the beginning of the event, while we were still somewhat sober.

• Trina on the hop-n-bop is similarly captured and while we were still somewhat sober.

• A lot of what you're seeing throughout is timed with the lyrics you're hearing.  Example: When Chrystal's got the whipped cream...it's not on accident that you were also hearing the words "milky way".

• When you see StayPuft dancing to "Party Hard", it looks like Johnny (Steve Irwin to the right) puppets the echoing "Party Hard" and it makes me laugh every time.

• All the pics included at the end were ones you guys posted on the event page. Thank you for those!

I might have enough footage of everyone looking at the camera to see if "it's on?" to make a montage of just that. Stay tuned, maybe.

PS. I don't wanna hear any bitching about how they look fat or bald or wasted or ridiculous.* We're being captured in our natural environment, not posing for Olan Mills.  Believe me, there's way worse I could've included in here. You're welcome very much.

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*Yep, I said it.

Ireland - Dublin, to be specific

Christmas Playlist

 

I made a youtube playlist for Christmasness.

You can watch, listen, and enjoy HERE!!

F-Bomb Highlights and The Week Ahead (now behind)

Its fuzzy Monday.*
Pretty sure my noggin is still not firing on all cylinders yet.  Although, I doubt it ever really is.
Saturday started at about 7 or 8 a.m. with a mad rush of chores.  Matthew put quite a list together for the day and we ran around knockin' each task off the list until there was only booze and food errands left.
At about 4, some folks started to show up and we got our costumes on and started actin' like fools.

This was the first year there was no keg.  Was kinda sad but we made doo (haha) with lots of cheap garbage beers....which makes for very full recycling bins and trash cans.
---------- (stuff went on later Monday and then I crashed early.  Tuesday was full of running around, so now I'm writing this on Wednesday.  keep up.) ------------

11 XL pizza boxes are still a tower out front because recycle day isn't til Friday.  We probably could've built a clubhouse had they not been rained on.  We also still have a big cooler full of aforementioned garbage beers and neither of us wants to drink them.
I found a pair of men's Hanes boxer briefs on the bathroom floor if anyone wants to claim those (if not, I'll keep them as a souvenir like last year's tiny spidermanties).

Anyway, enough about all the garbage, let's get back to the thing...
So, we did shit, and then Michelle did my hairs so I could be a Fighter.

Matthew threw on his Flash costume and we went outside to go start playing and hangin' with a handful of folks and getting the pizza situated and crap and stuff.

Among the costumes were:
Pats from Absolutely Fabulous.
Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock
Flava Flav
a Freeloader
a Flasher
Frieda Kahlo
a Fallen Angel
a few Fairies
a Frankentigger
Flashdance
Nick Fury
2 Frenchmen
2 sets of Flinstones
a Foreign Tourist
a Flamingo
a Fluffer
a Function
Fanta!
a Fisherman
Flo from Mel's Diner
a Fuckin' Pregnant lady
and a Fuckin' Surprise (thanks, Tom and Martha!!)

I'm sure I'm Forgetting some.
The costumes were great - the slide and bouncehouse were awesome, as always....and the pool was.....
fucking warm.
Later in the night there were Fire dancers and synchronized swimming along with grandiose toasts and drunk jenga.
There's some great footage I'll be piecing together this weekend and hope to have it done over the next few days.
-------------(now its Saturday and I need to recap the week)------------
Monday, we had dance class and the big boss gave us some feedback and pointers.  I feel we'll be better next Tuesday when we go in.  His pointers were simple but made a huge difference.  We've discovered that 6:30 pm is NOT our time slot.  We much prefer the 8:45.  Hustle is our shit, which is an easy transition into Swing (which is the whole reason I signed us up).  Waltz we kinda choked on since it had been a couple weeks.
Tuesday, was some family stuff I won't talk about here.
Wednesday, I got my hairs did and then we went to see Static-X at the Beacham.  They were awesome and I got to push boys into the pit.  Andrew was pitblockin' me.  He's very protective.  I bought him a shirt and some shots cuz he took good care of me.  Planet Pizza afterwards was heavenly.
Thursday, was Thursday.
Friday, we went to a birthday shindig for a musician friend and chatted up some new folks, drank a bunch of rum, and watched some beer pong but gave the Stephenson Slip before the cake was cut.

This morning, I awoke to the smell of Matthew cooking organic bacon.
Bliss.



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*Obviously, it isn't Monday anymore.

Dance Class The Other Night

We hustled all night with some stumbles on hammerlocks.

Later in the evening (back at home), we decided we wanted to try doing a tango to this The Kills song:



And we want to do a waltz to The Game of Thrones intro song (skipping the middle part that gets slow):



So we'll be practicing to those songs.  I gotta find a good hustle song for us to practice to.  In the studio, we practiced to MJ's Billy Jean last night before someone switched it up again.  The music is difficult in there because there are folks practicing competition stuff so the music's constantly changing.

Also, I don't think I showed off my new shoes, ones I had on Pinterest - the ones Instructor Brian says are 'angry':

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UPDATE!!
We found a song to hustle to!

New Ink!!

I'd originally wanted an ouroboros as a bracelet around my wrist but I really dug this knotted up one and ended up putting it above my firedancer.
I could go into the whys, but you turds are smart and if you know me well enough, you can figure out the whys without me having to be long winded about it. ;)

Also, check out Trinity.  Awesome shop, nice guys, great art.
YAY FOR SUPPORTING THE LOCAL COMMUNITY!

The Neverending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part III

Saturday Day 6 - DAY OF!! - The morning greeted us with a maid cop knock, Matthew sleepily saying, "come back later" and then me freaking out that my camera bag wasn't in my room.  We went looking back at the band stage and I told Matt that I kinda remember Willie saying that he had my camera bag but I didn't trust my drunken head at that point.  We did the quick stage search (did not see the washtub bass in the bushes) and talked to the towel boy, to end up back in the room with my phone finally plugged in to recharge and a reply from Willie saying, "Yes, I still have your camera bag." with relief washing over.  This made us hungry and we headed over to the restaurant for breakfast buffet where Matthew told me to check my email on my phone.  I looked and smiled seeing the Two Door Cinema Club tickets for the Beacham Theater on June 4th.  YAY!!!
We went and wandered around the vendor room and picked up some prints by this dude, Willie gave us some badass prints from this dude and this set as a bday present that I'm effin' excited about.
This next bit, I feel the need to preface with the following:
About a month ago, I told Front Man John of The Bloody Jug Band that, with my bday coming up, Matt would probably be hitting him up for a merch/souvenir size washboard that the band sells during shows.  I'd made a little noise about how great it would be to have one on our "gallery" wall at home.
And this bit is the actual turn of events:
After running through the vendor room and pickin' up cards and prints and shakin' hands and playin' games, we went back by the Band booth to say "see ya" and Seth, John, & Stormy were there.  We chatted a minute and then John said something about my birthday and picked up the washboard he plays during shows and recent practices and took the straps & eye-hooks off and handed it to me with a "Happy Birthday" or something or other.
I say "something or other" because at some point while he was handing it to me, my brain shut down in disbelief.
I say "disbelief" because 1) that was the one he uses in shows and I knew they had a show the following night and 2) I asked for A washboard, not THE washboard.
There were 2 thimbles included even.

Completely overwhelmed and in a slight state of shock, I said my thank you's and "see ya" laters and we headed out.

Once home, Matthew said, "Close your eyes and put your hands out flat...." which was shortly followed by, "OK, open'em."  This is what I saw in my hands:

I totally know what you're saying....I was saying the same thing.
"HOLY CRAP, HOW COULD ANY ONE DAY GET ANY MORE AWESOME?!?"
I'll tell ya....
A 2.5 hour nap surely helps.
And dinner at Hawkers might've had something to do with it.
And then a trip with crazy friends to Lil 500 to ride go-karts might contribute, too.

The bumpy track was....
There was NO POSSIBLE WAY to NOT laugh or smile while driving.  The boobahs were bouncing, the track was ridiculous, everyone was doing something different and clownin'.
The fast track was....
Fast...and slippery and awesome.
Perma-grins for the night and sore faces later on from smiling/laughing so much.
We also sang "We Are Young" by Fun at the top of our lungs while we were driving.

This bit of awesome was followed by dive bar karaoke at Cheers and singin' "Man In A Box", "Road To Nowhere", "Bobby McGee", "Roadhouse Blues" and trainwreck shots with an improv LMFAO "I'm Sexy & I Know It" group dance.

Seriously, even just thinking about it now is bringing a giant effing smile to my face.

We finished off the night with sign stealing and 7/11 sammiches.

The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part 1

Monday Day 1 - Nice leisurely trip to the gym to burn off some of the weekend after being hungover and sleeping almost all day Sunday.  While I was there, Trainer Brian was there and we caught up on things.  He looks like a Beatle now.  Hadn't seen him in months...hair's all grown out and he's rockin' an interesting mustache configuration.  Got home and cleaned up and Willie stopped by to give me some shit about something and brought up Dave & Buster's.  So we went.  And proceeded to get a bit of lunch and a little drunk and a lot excited over some pretty silly games....  Like, video lawn darts (my shit) and a Pirates game we fuckin' pwned through all 3 acts, and a Spaceballs game that was a big ticketer that was basically just a rubber ball version of Plinko from Price Is Right (also my shit).  We had some >3,000 tickets and went crazy snatching up cheap toys & candy from the winner's shop.
The next morning I would realize that I'd left my check card at the bar.

Tuesday Day 2 - The night before there were talks of waterpark action.  Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon?  Typhoon won out because I used to work there and hadn't been since.  13yrs?  So we stopped by Dave & Buster's to grab my check card and cruised out to Typhoon.  After a quick stop by the bar, The Crush'n'Gusher made me dirty giggle and we grabbed a dual tube to jump on the Bananas slide first.  Got a workout up those stairs and jumped in to immediately start screaming down the slippery slopes and yell "SHIT" on turns when I thought we'd flip over.  Zippy bags full of cards were lost & found more than once.  Mayday Falls flipped me backwards.  Gangplank was shorter than I remember and still pretty lame.  Keelhaul was fun and I scraped my foot on the bottom of the Creek in the same spot Pannacakes pool attacked me from the weekend.  The water seemed low.  Terry made green crazy shots. They were tasty.
When I got home, Matthew and I were supposed to dance.  After another couple of jager shots, I ended up passing out in the car on the way to dance.
Being the Awesome he is, he went in to check out the situation (explaining that I was "not feeling well") for a solo dance with Instructor Brian's instructor lady friend, Lindsay but she was busy, so he rescheduled us and had a cider at the bar we frequent next to our dance studio.

Common Denominator

Stumbled upon someone the other day who shared a similar past:

Cabin In The Woods

So this is what happens when you take a sturdy base of Evil Dead, throw in a pinch of Cube, a dash of 13 Ghosts, a dollop of Truman Show and stir.

5 lucky "college kids" (they all look to be about 30) go to a cabin in the woods for a weekend retreat.
Once they get there, they're locked into a fucked up sort of reality show.
Behind the scenes, the 'producers' take bets on their fate as the kids explore the cabin and die one by one.
There's a bunch more meat to this story and of course it was done really well.
This is Joss Whedon we're talking about.
I will say, the monster release party is an awesome one.

So fun, I'll give it 4 out of 5 Ancient Ones.

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Dance

Back in October, Matthew and I celebrated our 7 year itch.
I snatched up a groupon for Arthur Murray classes.

We finally started going when we came back from Hawaii.
The first class included simple box step (which is also the rumba.  hm, who knew!?), basic tango, hustle, swing steps, and one basic turn.
Then I bought these dancin' shoes I found on sale here.  They make me & my feet happy.

They had perfect timing and came in the day before our 2nd class, so when we got there & I put them on, one of the girls who works at the studio was all, "I love them!  Where'd you get'em?"
"....uh....online?"  It kinda threw me off that someone who does this for a living would be asking me where I got proshoes.

We got Brian to tell us his sinking boat story that I'd read here.
He made it sound like it was a sore subject but patted us on the back for reading profiles.
Then he taught us turns for the rumba & the waltz.  He's dreamy to dance with.
And apparently, I'm only to be instructed by young dudes named Brian.
Here's what Matthew looked like at the studio last week, while we were waiting for said Brian:

Matthew sweated through his white shirt.  I told him he should wear a "let's get physical" sweatband for the next class....WHICH IS TONIGHT!

I love our classes.

Stephenson Sticker #1

WTH Weds - Key West Faves

Here are some of my favorite pics from Matthew's birthday trip:

TT - American Horror Story

We dvr'd it and are just sittin' down to watch it.

I like how many times they say "shit".
And strong opening.
BEST opening credits since True Blood.



Apparently, the "mongoloid" tends to spit in the cooking.

Evil is always in the attic.

Bobby's a douchebag psychiatrist who got busted "pile driving" one of his students.
So the family moves into some big old house with a past & weird wall paintings.
Y'know....as a "new start" or "2nd chance".

6ft Under mom is a creepy maid.

Bobby sees her as a hot young poa.

Bobby's client is a skull faced kid who imagines he's some great serial killer who puts the moves on Bobby's high school daughter who cuts herself so she can feel.

Bobby also gets naked.
I ain't mad at that.
He also hatebates in the window.
HAHA...he's cryin' again.*

I LOVE THIS SHOW!!

The piano string noises are effective, the Weasley twins are creepy, Jessica Lange is awesome & bitchy, Adelaide is adorable....

Bobby's wife gets banged by some rubberdude while Bobby is playin' with the stove.
Bobby's kid client and daughter scheme to bring justice to the school bitch bully....that was some fun crazy shit.  Lots of screaming, flashes of bloody teeth, and the bitch bully gets scratched up in her FACE.
Now there's some burn dude and the make up is amazing and he's tellin' his arson story.

Holy crap that was fun.
I'm in it for the season, fo'sho.
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*Matt used to watch The Practice and McDermott's character, Bobby, cried in almost every episode.  I didn't like that show.

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

This was the first song I heard/saw:


Catchy right?
I was colored impressed about a month or so ago with Pannacakes when we were at a divey bar in Winter Park and they had this song available on their jukebox.*
The band recently got a lot of buzz at Lollapalooza & apparently put on a pretty damn good show.
Their sound is fun and I'm sure its only a matter of time before we get saturated by them being featured in every commercial.
Haha - the lead ginger has another one of my haircuts.  That's pretty rad.
Anyway, enjoy & Happy 1st September Friday the 2nd!!
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*does it still count as a jukebox if it only takes bills and doesn't have records in it?

YouTubesday - Daywalt Fear Factory

anyone else ready for it to be October?