Jamaican Me Cray

At the beginning of the year, Matthew asked me where we should go for the next three day weekend.
Around the same time, Mom requested to be invited to the next trip out of the country so she could get a passport stamp.

As Matthew's luck would have it, the next three day weekend and next trip out of the country happened to fall on Valentine's Day Weekend.
Pretty sure this is how sitcoms get written.

Also, remember that one time I lost my passport in Amsterdam?....well, this trip put me under the gun to get my emergency issued temporary passport renewed in time for our 2/14 departure.  Of course, being me, I'd put it off thinking it didn't expire until the end of February.....so imagine the look on my face when, on 1/27, I finally looked at my temporary passport and noticed the 2/14 expiration date.  By about noon, I'd had all my paperwork filled out and new picture taken and everything off to be overnighted to a Philly address on a hope and a prayer.  The paperwork all said that the expedited process would take 2-3 weeks. It showed up in my mailbox a week later.
The sense of relief that washed over me as I opened the envelope that day was indeed a glorious one.

The idea of Matt going alone with my mother for a long weekend in what ended up being Negril, Jamaica provided about an hour's worth of jokes and laughter with Pannacakes.  Good thing I didn't tell her about it until after the passport arrived.

Before we'd booked the trip, I'd done some research on Jamaica vs DR and knew we'd be good for an all-inclusive. Most of the articles found pointed towards Jamaica and then after reading some resort reviews, we determined that Negril was the place to go and the RIU Tropical Palace was the place to stay (mainly because it wasn't already sold out).

The trip looked a little like this:


We got some nice sunburns.
We drank a lot of rum, pina coladas, mimosas, Red Stripes.
We ate some really nice curries and jerks. (heh)
We met some really nice people.
We steered clear of some slightly questionable things and we didn't drink the water.

Jamaica was fantastic and I wouldn't be upset if we had to go back.
With more friends.
Mom's invited again, too, although she was makin' some noise about Costa Rica for Christmas.

2013 Highlighting the Ups

Matthew and I were at dinner the other night talking & getting excited about what we want to do in 2014 and discussing how we thought 2013 went.
Apparently, I had my cranky pants on because I said it was an "OK" year and he said it was "pretty fuckin' awesome".
I've realized since then that unfortunately, and for some stupid reason, my noggin was choosing to highlight some of the more awkward 2013 moments instead of all the seriously amazing things that happened.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write out the rundown of awesome (and skipping over all the not-so-awesome), not to be a douche braggart, but to further reinforce those in my head instead of those less than optimal and maybe it'll help you do the same. I've seen your facebook posts about how crappy the year was and/or how you're ready for 2013 to be over and it's ok if sometimes we need reminders to clear our perspectives.

January was again full of drunken shenanigans at the Scottish Highland Games.  I dove head first into renovating the Dollhouse of Horrors and started building out stage pieces for the Bloody Jug Band...some by request, others not so much. We also saw Charlie Murphy down at the Improv.

February was more Dollhouse of Horrors work and a trip to Helen, GA.  We also went to see Muse at Amway Center and I cried a little bit at how amazing their show was.

In March, we saw the Dropkick Murphys again, I puppeteered for the Bloody Jug Band's video for "Roadkill Boys".  This was also the month we did Whole30 for the first time and I submitted my last photo for the 12month long Inspired class I'd signed up for in January.
Yep...I totally fell out of it for the rest of the year because of shiny new things and being inspired elsewhere.  But I'm glad I went out with a bang.

April started with a trip to see The Marvelous Mehegans up in Corning, NY.  I took a banjo lesson, we finally ate at Cask & Larder and Ravenous Pig, saw Tony Bourdain at Hard Rock, and visited Disney. This is also when I started thinking about a miniatures.com contest entry.

May was, of course, insane with a Mother's Day pool party that got way more rowdy than what was intended, a concert poster design class on Skillshare, a couple of BJB shows, and was capped off by a trip to New Orleans, LA for my & Pannacakes' birthdays.

June included a Glassman show at Peacock that was pretty killer, a visit with Vaughn & Jen to pick up one of my favorite purchases of the year (Betty & Veronica pictured below), jury duty selections for George Zimmerman, and was also when I received my walking papers from the company I'd worked for over the previous 12 years.

July started off with new hair to celebrate my corporate departure, a crazy 3rd of July party at Pannacakes', followed by a rained out pool party at the Merriam's for the 4th, a Khal Drogo costume for Matthew, the 8th Annual Summer Bomb, a couple of visits to DRIP, and Marilyn Manson at Hard Rock.

August had a The Cult show at HOB, another couple of BJB shows, a trip to Busch Gardens followed by a viewing of Blackfish, a Danny Leggett show, Cedric's surprise birthday party, a drunk monologues shoot (shut up, I'll get to that later), and a trip to Ocala to see April and her fam.  Made a fake movie poster for a friend's birthday and finished up a painting for Cedric & Michelle's anniversary.

September we rocked our own logo for a Labor Day weekend pub crawl, went and saw Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes at Hard Rock and then went to see them again during the Gentlemen of the Road festival weekend where we also saw Mumford & Sons and stayed at a dumpy St. Aug beach hotel.  And we attended a lovely DIY wedding.

In October we went to see Terribly Odd's Haunted Mansion inspired show, Ghost at Amway Center where they shook my pants and hair, I made a mermaid costume, had the best weekend at Spooky Empire where I finally met Tom Savini, hugged Bill Moseley & Ve Neill, told Glenn Hetrick that I'd be his huckleberry, fingered Kane Hodder's left gloved hand during a photobomb, and sang "Goodbye Horses" to Jason Mewes. We finished off October in Austin, TX to celebrate my & Matthew's wedding anniversary and dress up like the 11th Doctor and a Reptilian Shapeshifter for Halloween, and met up with The Krutikovs for some kick ass high-end mexican food with the first best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck followed by the best burlesesque show I've ever seen.

November I made a sideshow freak light-up sign out of an old guitar case & built out two rickety crate shelves for the Jugly Art show at Peacock and then Matthew & I left to spend a week in Amsterdam for his birthday where I lost my passport.  If you ever lose your passport in another country...hope you're in Amsterdam.  They were so nice and the whole process was a lot smoother than expected. We also met some great & crazy party people and Matthew gave up a Heisenberg shirt to a loud Scotsman. We spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with Matt's family during which we had a lovely evening strolling through the botanical gardens looking at giant lit up Chihuly glass sculptures in awe.

And so here we are at the tail end of December and I've submitted my Evil Dead Cabin to the miniatures.com contest before deadline and am making a Gatsby-style dress for New Year's Eve. We had a crazy drunken Pannacakes party, and a silly family presents exchange day that included Cards Against Humanity and boxing robots. We spent Christmas in San Francisco where we saw Brian Setzer Orchestra on Christmas Eve, Matthew got his first proper straight razor shave, dim sum in Chinatown, lobster bisque & crab salad at Pier 39, and we ate some pretty awesome food at some pretty awesome hotel restaurants and had The Best gin & tonic either one of us had ever had and the second best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck.

And peppered in throughout the year we were bombarded with Harlem Shakes, BatDad Vines, Breaking Bad, Red Weddings, Doctor Who, A Fox That Says Things, Goat remixes, Miley Cyrus' tongue, Blurred Lines, Twerking, Grumpy Cat & Li'l Bub, and an Astronaut Singing Space Oddity on the freakin' Space Station.

This year, like all other's before it, has included lots of ups and downs and were it not for the downs...how would you know just how up the ups are?
Plus, you'd probably be an insufferable asshole.

Even if you're a generally positive person like me, and incredibly lucky with a shit ton of ups, there are times that the Veil of Crap can fall down over your eyes to muddy your vision.
I am SO grateful for how up my ups were this year and I appreciate having those downs when they came along....but there's No. Possible. Reason. a down should ever overshadow an up....so remember to not let them, ok?

Thank you, Matthew for reminding me of that & helping to remove my Crap Veil.
You're absolutely right....2013 was pretty fuckin' awesome.

Cheers, everyone, to 2014!!  May your ups be fuckin' killer and your downs be valuable lessons to overcome.

YouTubesday!! Tommy Edison!!

For the past year, here's my favorite blind guy on YouTube: 

He has this channel called Blind Film Critic.

That's where you can find him on Twitter and Instagram as well.

And there's also Tommy Edison XP where he talks about his experiences, takes on challenges, and answers questions from the comments section.

The guy is fuckin' adorable and he gives a super interesting perspective on life from his point of view (haha...view).

He held an AMA on Reddit last week that I'd mentioned on Facebook and as happy as I was that one of my questions got answered, it would've been nice if it hadn't been the douchey one that was 3rd in line on this list:

But hey, at least it was answered & didn't surprise anyone at all.

YAY, small victories!!

Anyway, check him out & his producer buddy, Ben Churchill - they're awesome and I'd like to give them hugs & buy them a beer someday.

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.

-----------------------------------

*Yep, I said it.

That One Time I Forgot To Share The NOLA Video

Pannacakes and I went to NOLA for our birthdays earlier this year.
Matthew met us there after a work trip in Austin.
Here's what that mess looked like:

YouTubesday - My Shaytards Fascination

Remember when I told you about my family falling apart and said that it would lead into next weekend's confession?  Well, I've bumped it up to Tuesday cuz it fits.
Anyway, right around the same time as all that crap, my YouTube palate started defining itself.
I've talked about that before & in that rambling, I linked this video:

For the past 5 years, that family has done a daily vlog. Most of them are about 20mins long and he, Shay, edits together their Christmas footage into an hour long "Christmas Special".
It's a 20min window into another family's daily life.
And it's all the fun happy moments captured (except when their old dog, Malachi, passed...that was sad). But they include the random daily silly stuff that happens, like this, and then just this past weekend they were on Jimmy Kimmel because of this:

And yes, I've been watching them for that long.
And yeah, I'll admit that it's kinda weird - to watch a family on the webbernets. But they look happy and functional and I watch them because they restore a bit of hope for people/families and it's an awesome thought to be able to edit out the shit you don't wanna see. Plus, I selfishly wish my NJ cousins & Breeder friends would start recording and editing together their own little windows of their daily lives so I could watch them all grow up online and see the silly stories I only hear about when we're able to get together or those they occasionally post on Facebook.
It makes better reality tv than shit like The Kardashians or Honey BooBoo or whatever's currently sucking for entertainment on the cable channels we no longer have.

Aside from the Shaytards daily vlogs and the vids that Shay puts up on his channel, he's also involved in this kids cartoon series:

and has been working on this documentary where almost everyone cries in the trailer:


Lately Shay has been talking about his Mormon upbringing & experiences.
Some of it's interesting, some I don't agree with, but he's putting it out there. He's opening himself up to a broad audience and I have mad respect for anyone who's got the balls to do that and get conversations going.  Especially when it comes to complicated subjects that take people out of their comfort zones.

I love my little interweb family.
And, No...watching them does not make me want kids of our own.
My list of reasons to not birth any babies has only grown since watching them.
20mins is a lovely small dose and then I can click to see talking animals or watch someone play video games.

Advice To Young Bloggers

My friend's daughter, Nae, has recently been makin' some noise about blogging and was looking for recommendations for sites to start her own.
It got me thinkin' about what I'd pass along, or maybe, what I wish I'd heard those several years* ago when I first started putting my stupid voice out there.

Here are some helpful-ish tips:

1. Don't write for other people. They won't read your shit anyway. And I do mean that in the nicest way possible. They just won't. Until one day when you think no one reads it and then someone mentions to you at a party that they've been reading it. And that when they do, it's usually during a morning constitutional. But hey, they're reading it, right? Score!!
There have been a few other times people have owned up to reading my shit -looking forward to it even- and it's a funny feeling. I love you, you fucking creepers. ;)

2. Write for yourself. If you have something heavy on your mind - get that shit OUT!! Right then - write it down on something to type up later, get the mobile app....whatever...just write it down. Get those brilliant thoughts outta your head. It's actually better for your noggin health. Plus, you don't wanna let a brilliant strike slip away only to have a creative block later. I've found that while traveling or in places where I don't have a good connection, actual writing with pen & paper is best. *GASP* I knoooooow!! Who'da thunk?
The other awesome reason to write for yourself, and the reason I write for myself, is so when you're older than you ever thought was possible and your mind has left town, you have some entertaining shit to read or have read to you. Little time capsules & slivers of yourself to look back on or pass through the family. Same reason applies as to why I make the dumb videos I make.

3. Don't censor yourself or be afraid to offend people. Because fuck them.  See #2. (heh...#2)

4. Proofread a shit ton of times before you publish it.  Most of the time you'll come off sounding like an idiot anyway (especially if you're like me and write in a conscious thought stream that includes slang) - typos and easy grammatical errors will only compound that & cancel out any cool points you may have earned in topic.
Plus, simple errors just get on my nerves (ask Matthew) and I'd like it if more people took the time to proofread their shit.

5. Hemmingway said, "Write drunk; Edit sober."

6. If you're stumped and don't know what to write about, reviews and How-To's are always easy go-tos. Music, movies, books, events, travel, cooking, etc. (obviously, I've had no idea what to write about over the past few years.) Even old diary/journal entries are good references in times of blockage.

7. Never ever think anything is going to go viral. I stress this one here, but this goes for anything being shared via social media. "Viral" doesn't work that way. You can't set out one day thinking you're going to make a Viral Something. If you do, you'll only be disappointed and I'll point and laugh and say, "I told you so." If you end up making something that happens to go viral (see the difference there?), it will be a joyous occasion and we'll all be reading/watching it on loop and will help you celebrate.

8. As a follow-up to #3....Don't feel like you have a license to be an asshole to people. Don't make it sound like you're directing your commentary towards any one person. That's just mean. If there is anyone reading your shit, they'll probably think whatever you're saying is about them anyway, so just keep things in general terms. It's classier that way & you won't come off as just another trash talker.

9. Include pictures if you're wordy. How many times have you clicked a link and were assaulted by a giant screen of unbroken paragraphs and more words than you were able to scroll through? Did you read it all? No, you were too busy scrolling, looking for the end. Be nice to eyeballs and break it up into bite size chunks with pictures, lists (like this one), embedded vids, or just simply throw in some good paragraph breaks.

10. There's no number 10. I just wanted to see if you'd make it this far on the list. Here's a small reward if you've only scrolled to the ending because you let the amount of words intimidate you:

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*Yes, I actually have been blogging for "several years". I kept up with one on multiply.com for a couple years starting in 2004. multiply.com isn't around anymore as of May 2013. Go ahead, check. Then I did the myspace thing for a few years until I started spewing all over Blogger in 2008 with this slice of brilliance. And that's only the internet stuff. I've kept journals all my life, too!!

This Morning (in highlights) Before 10am

I roll over in bed with Snoop at my side and lazily open my eyes.
Matthew comes out of the bathroom and says, "you look pretty in that light."
I say, "you should take a picture so you can remember it for the rest of your life."
He leans over to kiss me and says, "I've taken a mental note."

I say, "Let's go swimming!!"
Then I say, "Let's have pancakes!!"
He says, "There's a lot goin' on there..."
I say, "Always."

I put my swimsuit on and pick up the painted horse head mask.
I go downstairs & put the horse head mask on and stand outside the bathroom door.
Matthew comes out and sees me standing there and does not appear alarmed in any way.
Scare failure.

I dance in the kitchen & we talk about Epcot.
He tells me to keep dancing.
I stop and tell him he can't tell me what to do.
He starts dancing in the kitchen.
Dance monkey win.

I show him that if I place my hands on either side of the bottom half of my racerback swimsuit & push down, it's an easy moon.
He makes a noise of agreement and upon seeing the following wedgie I give myself, says that I look like an olympian.
I give myself a wedgie again and look in the mirror.

I say, "I'm in a weird silly mood..." and start thinkin' about a movie I saw yesterday.
The Last Word.
Ray Romano's in it and one of his character's stress therapy/issue management outlets is to hang out in the park and wait for a mother & child.  He walks up behind them and makes a scary face at the baby, without the mother knowing, so that the baby starts crying.
I tell Matt about the flick and describe this whole scene.
I tell him that the reason I'm telling him all of this is because I'm thinkin' about scaring babies at Epcot today.
He's very supportive.

He comes upstairs to tell me he's leaving for the gym.
I give him departure kisses and start fidgeting with my swimsuit again.
I pick up my boobs because they're being smashed flat in the sporty suit.
I start moving them around underneath the suit fabric and say, "It's a puppet show" and laugh at myself.
He laughs and says, "You're so weird." and goes downstairs.

Monkey Farter

Happy Youtubesday!
Here are some recent favorites if you missed when I posted them recently.

Christmas Favorites

I think we still have about 3ft of torn up wrapping paper in the living room.

I'd clean up, but Snoop looks so cute in it.

This is what it looks like when you see all of my Christmas presents at once:

This view was a bit distracting on Xmas Day.  Anyone else ever run into this problem?

Matthew's mom sent me the faux fur vest & the necklace.  Matt said I looked like a villain.  I thought it looked a bit Jersey and made me feel like a stuffed animal.  The petting was nice throughout the night....even if it was just me doing the petting.

Hope you turds had a very merry.

Cheers to a Happy!!

Ireland - Dublin, to be specific

Christmas Playlist

 

I made a youtube playlist for Christmasness.

You can watch, listen, and enjoy HERE!!

Autopsy

I just watched this movie the other night via Netflix.

I gotta say, I was very pleasantly surprised.
It takes about the first 15-20 minutes to really warm up, but once you start paying attention, it really pays off.
I mention the warm up part, because while watching, I was like, "Oh, this is just a dumb SyFy Original lookin' flick that I can fall asleep to."  Then I started to notice all the contrasting colors in the hospital and the interesting lighting and was hooked.

Plot: Some dumbass kids get into an accident or something (I wasn't really paying attention at the beginning, as previously mentioned) and they get carted off to a local hospital to get checked out but they seem to be the only patients there.  Horror ensues.

I recognized 2 folks right away - Robert Patrick (shown here):

And that tattooed guy from Nip/Tuck and some other shows/movies where a tattooed gangsta lookin' guy is called for (shown here):

There are a few uncomfortable & really well done scenes and some great gore effects.
And a girl gets punched in the face (which made me applaud from my comfy bed).

Matthew and I used to go to these HorrorFest; 8 Films To Die For shows when they first started up.  We stopped when the movies ended up not being worth the money so we missed the 2009 flicks.  If we'd have gone to this one, I think Autopsy would've turned me around.

Was super fun and there were a few scenes in this movie that I've never seen on screen before and it had a nice ending.

CHEERS TO THEM!!

I give Autopsy 5 out of 5 spinal taps.

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.



------------------------------
*Obviously, it isn't Monday anymore.

Saw This & Thought It Was Pretty

It was floating around facebook.

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.

Current Obsession

"Seeing we call it painting.
Hearing we call it music.
Reading we call it poetry.
And living we call it life.
So art is an attempt to capture life."
                  -Eyvind Earle

Mad Men Noto Style

These made me happy this week:

From Noto's tumblr here.

My Favorite Snaps from NYE 2012

Heh...balls.

Fancy card games.

 The pinky makes the drink taste better.

The hat says it all.

Florence + the Machine - Ceremonials

If I could be any one else in the whole world, I would want to be Florence.
Even though she doesn't ride rollercoasters.
The music she makes is rollercoasters enough.



There's something magical about the mix of her voice, the drums, the harp, the lyrics....that pulls on you emotionally.  Well, on me anyway.  I can't speak for you turds.
I listened to this first song, "Only If For A Night" and was in tears about half way through.
The song's about her dead grandmother visiting her in a dream and giving her advice.

But it isn't sadness that makes me teary eyed, its an overwhelming amazement & joy that her music (and music in general) can make such an impact on people and evoke such emotion.

I've posted before an excerpt from her website that sums it up perfectly.  Go check that out.

You know how artists who find their niche and particular sound, the music starts to kinda run together a bit and each song sounds a bit similar to the one before it?
Florence doesn't do that.
Yes, you can definitely tell its them, but there's no running together.
I was worried about that with this album...how could they top Lungs?

Well, I'm insanely happy to say, they've done it.