All the Vlogs

I started a new challenge for myself.  I've decided to do a short video blog eveyr day for a month.  Maybe it'll be awesome.  Maybe it will suck.  Let's wait and see.

Here is the run-down of last week, my first week trying this crazy experiment.

 

The Liebster Award

So, a lovely gal who reads my blog from across the pond nominated me for The Liebster Award. Thank you, Aimee Lewis, that is very sweet and much appreciated! I'm not gonna lie, I had to look up what it meant (and also since I'm slightly paranoid, I wanted to make sure it's really a thing.) It turns out, it is actually a thing. The Liebster Award comes from the German meaning for dearest or beloved, so I approve. 
So,

What is the Liebster Award?

The nominees for the award are bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers with the purpose of helping them reach a new audience and bond with their readers/other bloggers. 

I like it. I think it's a delightful tool. The challenge for me is living up to this lovely award and then the "pay if forward" aspect of the award. I follow lots of blogs, but I think they all have larger audiences than I do. (see the rules below)

The Rules:

-Nominees must link back to the blogger who awarded them. (Check)

-If nominated, write '11 Random Facts' about yourself. (elevensies check)
-Answer the 11 questions the person who nominated you wrote for you. (check-ish)

-Come up with 11 new questions to be answered by 11 new nominees. (Can't decide...brain explosion)

11 Random Facts About Me:

1. The first CD I ever bought was the Dangerous Minds soundtrack (I was super street, yo)  

2. I often make up songs about mundane stuff I'm doing and sing them around the house

3. I have a special dance for everything (it's generally the same booty-shake dance with different names of whatever was special enough to garner a dance at the time)

4. I wished I was a boy for most of my childhood. I didn't like girls and I didn't like being a girl for many many years. To this day, my number of male friends greatly outweighs my number of female friends. I think because of this, I have a really hard time making/keeping female friends even though I really love female companionship.

5.Sometimes I can almost literally hear my PS3 whispering to me to play video games. Shhh. I'll be right back.

6.I am super addicted to The Sims games. It's bad, you guys. Full blown addiction. (see above)

7. If it were socially acceptable to only wear pajamas forever, I would.
 

8. Boyfriend claims that I drink more water than anyone else on the planet. I think he is silly. (BRB I gotta go pee.)

9.I own a ridiculous amount of stuffed animals/toys for someone pushing 30 with no children.

10.I love coffee.

11. I'm the oldest of 4 children and I love my siblings more than they know. I don't tell them enough.

My answers to Aimee's questions:

1) If you could interview anyone in the world who would it be? 
 Jenny Lawson, AKA The Bloggess. I have had the amazing pleasure of meeting her and it was a life-changing 5 minutes. But I would actually like to sit down and ask her questions when I'm not crying and spazzing out.

2) If you won the lottery what would you do with your life?
Probably a lot of what I'm doing now: not having a full-time day job, writing, playing video games, and attempting to get my acting career off the ground. Except I'd have disposable lottery money and live far more comfortably than I do now.

3) What do you dream about in your sleep the most?
Lately, there has been no rhyme or reason to my dreams. They've ranged from heists to going back to school. Very strange. 

4) What are you scared of?
Oh, lots of things. Mostly, large groups of strangers, flying, elevators, birds, squirrels. You know, normal stuff. 

5) What is the song of your life?
This is an ever-changing soundtrack. For a while it was anything by Jonathan Coulton, but lately, it's been anything by Florence and the Machine. 

6) What was your first ambition in life?
I think my very first ambition in life was to be a veterinarian. When my parents made it clear that to be a vet you needed really good science and math skills and those were skills I did not posses, I realized I wanted to be a performer and/or a writer.
 

7) If you could snog one celeb, marry another, and lock away another who would they be?
LOL. I love this question and I'm stealing it. Leave it to the Brits to class up the awful Yank version of this question (Marry, Fuck, Kill.) I love the word "snog" love it, love it, love it.   Anywho...
Snog: Nathan Fillion
Marry: David Tennant (I don't really need to explain why, do I?)
Lock away: The Kardashians ALL. OF. THEM. 

8) Which celebrity reality show would you go on if you were famous?
Either DWTS if only to get in better shape, and because I really enjoy dancing, or Celebrity Fear Factor, which isn't on anymore, but as celebrities, they don't make you eat anything gross.

9) What do you eat for breakfast?
I'm not a huge breakfast person. Since high school I've had trouble eating first thing in the morning. If I eat too soon after waking up, I'll throw up immediately. If I do eat breakfast, it's usual scrambled eggs or a protein bar.

10) What is your favourite book?
This is like asking me to choose my favorite child, but one of my all-time favorite books is The Secret Life of Bees.  

11) The worst advice you've ever been given?
I've been given some really awful advice in my life, usually I completely ignore it and thus forget about it. The worst advice I've ever been given that I followed was to avoid taking background acting jobs lest I end up a "profession extra" and not have much of a successful career.  This is just nonsense and I'm mad at myself for believing it for so many years. This was probably said to me under the assumption that I wanted to be famous. I don't. I have no desire for massive fame. I just want to make a living, which is do-able as a union background actor. In the last 3 months I've had more paying acting jobs as a background actor than I have in the past 3 years. Every career is different and everyone takes a unique path to obtain whatever level of success they end up with. Especially in this quickly and ever-evolving entertainment landscape, there is no road map to success. Your success is whatever you make it.

  

My nominees: 
This Must Be The Place 
Down the Rabbit Hole
Keeping it Trashy in the Bible Belt
Tristachio 
I Thought You Were Shorter
Smile Big and Pretty 
Pink Nightmare
Lincoln bLogs
Good News For People Who Love Bad News
The Fashionable Gamer (even though I just realized she's already been nominated, I don't care because I love her blog; it's adorable)
(And in a shocking turn of nepotism) Jarrett Writes

My Questions for you:
1) What was/is your favorite shirt you've ever worn?
2) If you found a mysterious briefcase full of money, what would you do?

3) Would you rather have your entire sexual history reenacted by the animatronics in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride, or have all the characters of your sexual history released by the Franklin Mint as a commemorative chess set?
4) Celebrity you would Snog, Marry, Banish to a Remote Island, Accompany to an Amusement Park, Create a Revolutionary Movement With?

5) Favorite game? (video game, board game, dice game, made-up game, etc)

6) Who would you want to portray you in your biopic movie?

7) If you could be any video game character (or if you're not a gamer, any fictional character) who would you be and why?

8) What's your worst distraction when you're trying to write?

9) What is the origin of your name? (Real name or blogger name)

10) What's the most recent book you read/are reading currently?

11)  What is your favorite season?

Whew. That was a doozy of a blog post. Thanks again to Aimee for the compliment of the nomination and kindly kicking me in the butt and getting me to write a post.

Blogger TAG!

The lovely Ryan Adair from the blog, This Must Be the Place, tagged me in a blogger share activity, and it was perfect timing because my creative juices seem to be all back-logged and junk. I am grateful to her, not only because she reads my blog and likes it, but for tagging me in this fun writing exercise/share-a-thon. Hopefully, I don't overshare. Sorry people who know me IRL!

So, here's the deal: I have to tell  you, the internets 11 facts about me that you may not know, then answer 11 questions asked by my tagger, Ryan, and then tag some other bloggers I like and ask them to share 11 unknowns, and then answer my 11 questions. Whew!  Did everyone get that? Good.
Here we go:

11 Unknown/Little-known Facts About Me

1) When I was 12, I was diagnosed with Scoliosis and had to wear a back brace for 2 years. A couple of months before my 15th birthday I underwent spinal surgery to correct the severe curve in my spine. I spent a week in the hospital and spent six weeks at home recovering before I was able to go back to school part-time.

2) I'm slightly dyslexic with numbers. 

3) When I was 3, I got my head stuck in between the stair banister railings. My dad had to saw one of the railings off to get me out.

4) My favorite Disney characters are Chip and Dale.

5) I drink a ridiculous amount of water every day. If I don't have a bottle of water with me at all times, I start to feel anxious and cranky.

6) I still sleep with a menagerie of plushies and stuffed-animals on my side of the bed. Boyfriend has accepted this about me and thinks it's endearing loves me anyway.

7) As a kid I made up my own rules to the game Risk using my toys, figurines, and action figures. It was an epic bloodbath. My official rules are written down probably still inside our old-ass edition of Risk at my mom's house. While I love playing Risk as an adult, I still maintain that my rules make a better game.

8) When I was between the ages of 2 and 6, I had an imaginary friend named "Gubby" who "lived next to the Dairy Queen" (his only discerning feature.) When I was 7, I had an imaginary talking dog named "Barnaby."

9) My hair refuses to hold curl. I got a perm in middle school  and it fell out 3 weeks later. The salon re-did the perm and it fell out again in 3 weeks. My hair had a frizzy look to it for a while. (A nerdy awkward girl with a bad perm, a back brace, and braces. I was way popular in middle school.)

10) My prized childhood posession was my dollhouse. It was my Christmas present from Santa when I was about 7 years old. Even now, as an adult, I still occasionally fantasize about playing with my dollhouse.

11) I hate jelly beans. Hate. I refuse to eat them.

My 11 Questions From Ryan

1. What has been your biggest struggle in life? 
My biggest and longest struggle has definitely been dealing with chronic anxiety and depression. The earliest memory I have of feeling depressed was when I was 3. It's something I've had my entire life as I know it, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was almost an adult. I am getting better, but every day is a fight to stay "better."

2. How do you see your future self? (Do you have kids? A career you enjoy? In rehab?)
My career dream for my future self is to be able to make my living by writing and acting with lots of video games in between, and no crappy 9-5 job getting in the way. Boyfriend and I will get married when we feel like it and have a kid when we're ready. We'll have at least one dog and a nice cozy house with a yard. Maybe we can even have a pet piggie and a pet skunk too.

3. Who are you closer to, your mother or father? Why?
This one is tough. As a kid, I was a lot closer to my dad than my mom until they divorced and my dad left the country for a couple of years for work. During my Scoliosis treatment, my mom and I became closer since we spent so much time together (she was the one taking me to the doctor and taking care of me after surgery.) Now, it's hard to say who I'm closer to. I think it depends on what's going on in my life at the time.

4. If you had 24 hours to live, and you weren't wasting your time by freaking out about dying-- what would you do and WHO would you spend your time with, and you have to spend it someone other than your significant other!
I would want to spend as much of the day as possible with my family just sitting around and talking. I would also want to write each of my loved ones a letter for them to read after I'm gone telling them my favorite memory of them.

5. Is there anyone you want to make amends with and haven't
When I was in middle school, there was a girl who didn't really fit in (even less so than me) but she was super sweet to me. We were friends for a while but something happened to me. I gave in to my insecurities and peer pressure, and I turned into a huge asshole and started ignoring her and not sticking up for her when the other kids picked on her. I never picked on her directly, but I let her take the heat so that I wouldn't have to. She eventually ran away from home. I don't know what ever happened to her, and I still feel awful about it to this day.  Sometimes it even keeps me up at night. I'm sorry M.  Wherever you are, I hope you are well. There is no excuse for how I treated you, you did not deserve that.

6. What is your favorite dessert?
I love brownie sundaes.

7. What is your favorite ethnic cuisine? (Mine is Thai!)
I do like Thai food, but I am almost always in the mood for Italian.

8. What is the moment you are MOST proud of in your life?
I'm proud of myself for being able to get past my insecurities and anxieties and move 1800 miles away from home even though it hasn't been the easiest road I've chosen to take. I am proud of myself for having the chutzpah and the drive to actually do it.

9. What is your greatest contribution to friendships/relationships?
I have a ridiculous sense of humor and no matter what is going on, I feel a compulsion to make someone smile or laugh. I want to bring joy and comfort to the people in my life.

10. Do you avoid controversy or stand up and call it out?
It depends on the situation and the controversy. If it's just politics or an argument I know that no one will win (like a FB or forum debate online,) I will stay out of it. I have better things to spend my energy on.  But, if I see a true injustice or major bullshit going on, I will step up and do something to try to fix it.

11. What are you looking forward to the most in the next year?

Hopefully moving to California, expanding my acting/writing career, and getting a doggie.

Well, there you go.  Are you sick of hearing about me yet? I'm tagging these bloggers whom I enjoy reading:

Stephanie @ The Anecdote of My Life
The Management @ The Prince and the Prozac

Tristachio @ Tristachio: Just a Family of Nuts

Kathy @ That's What She Said

Rachel @ I Thought You Were Shorter

Lincoln @ Lincoln Blogs Stuff

TAG!

My 11 questions to you:

1) What was your most prized possession as a child?

2) What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you?

3) Not counting a significant other, who is your favorite person to spend time with?

4) Did you have any imaginary friends as a kid?

5) If you could be any fictional character (from books, movies, TV, games, comics, etc.) who would you choose to be? Why?

6) What was your favorite game as a child? What is your favorite game as an adult?

7) What is your nastiest habit?

8) What is the most reckless thing you have ever done?

9) Do you have a nickname? What is it? Have you ever had an embarrassing nickname?

10) If you had to be stuck in a video game universe which one would you choose? Why?

11) If you could write your past self a note to tell yourself one thing, what would you say?

Happy blogging! I look forward to getting to know you all better.

Happy Blogiversary!

One year ago today, I started this little blog. Thanks to I-don't-even-know-what, my little blog has had almost 11,000 views in that time! In honor of this auspicious occasion, I thought I'd do something very special.  But, I'm not quite sure what that special something is yet...


It will be special-er than this
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I want to say a big "thank you" to anyone and everyone who reads my ramblings with any regularity, or anyone and everyone who stumbles upon this blog randomly and decides to return. I wanted to write some epic post about an amazing adventure, but I haven't had any adventures worthy of a momentous day such as today. I also wanted to do some sort of freebie fan giveaway as a way to show my appreciation, but I'm poor and I don't have any sponsors (yet.)  But due to awesomeness, I have a 4-day weekend coming up and I'm pretty sure that will give me enough time to concoct something super sweet in honor of my blog's first of what I hope are many anniversaries.
Stay tuned, and thanks so much for reading!

Z is for Zooming Zeldas in the Zazzle Shop! I survived this challenge!



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 FINALLY!!!
That was a rough month.  I started the challenge a little late due to PAX East, but I did it!!! The most challenging part was actually finding an idea or a topic to write about each day, yet alone a video game topic to write about each day.  Anyone who wants to get serious about exercising their writing muscles and pushing their creative mind to do more, I would recommend doing the A-Z Blog Challenge.  It doesn't have to be in the time frame set by the challenge blog itself.  I didn't let missing the deadline stop me, and you shouldn't let it stop you. In elementary school when they made us run a timed mile every quarter, I was always the slowest, but I always finished. Taunting ensued regarding my slow-ass time, but I finished and I took pride in that.

I found it much easier to blog or at least plan blogging time having this challenge in place, it gave me an attainable daily goal but it also pushed me.  There were days where I didn't feel like writing at all.  There were days where I was too exhausted to even think about writing something, and there were other days when the thought of trying to be funny made my brain hurt.  But, there were plenty more days where it felt easy...or at least easier. Some days I thought of a brilliant idea for a letter that would be days away, so I would save it in the draft folder. Sometimes I would write almost a full post under a letter that wouldn't be posted for a week, and then by the time that post was scheduled to go up, I'd think of something entirely different and better for the letter and I would have to do some post rearranging.

At any given time, I have at least 5 drafts in my draft folder.  Sometimes they are just a jumble of words that are complete gibberish to anyone who reads them, but I know exactly what idea they are referring to. Other than my draft folder, I also have 10s of notebooks, scrap papers, post-it notes, notes-to-self stored in my iPod, and just random scribblings lying around. Whenever I think about getting around to digitizing all of the paper notes, I get distracted by a game, or a brilliant writing idear, or the occasional shiny object.

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This blog post is brought to you by sleep deprivation, loathing, and by the Crappy Company Coffee Co. 

P.S. I now have a Zazzle Shop! Thanks to *popular demand, you can now buy your Epic Girlfriend/Boyfriend gear today!

P.P.S * Popular demand = 2 people.

Y is for Youda



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 No, I did not misspell the name our favorite green Jedi Master.

Hmmm, methinks misspelled my name you have.

No Yoda, I'm not talking about you, and stop ending sentences with prepositions! It makes a grammar nerd crazy. I love you, but please speak normal English. Wait, you're in my head why are you using poor grammar if you're in my head? Leave my brain alone, Yoda!

Hmmm, I sense much anger in you. Anger lead-

SHUT UP YODA-IN-MY-HEAD!

I love simulation games.  I grew up playing SimTown, then SimCity 3000 and Sim Theme Park and then the big papa of them all, my favorite, my obsession: The Sims. You know how some people lose hours, days, weeks, months, years of there life to WoW? Like crack addicts they just can't stop?  The Sims is my crack. The Sims is my WoW. It's like logging in and playing god for hours.  You plan all these great futures for these little beings that you make and then they csn go and screw it up all by themselves.  Or you can screw them over yourself. Bwahahaha.  They were my own personal voodoo dolls at times.  Ways to act out my darkest fantasies without hurting anyone.  It was my own digital dollhouse. It makes me think that if I really am "made in God's image" then that dude has one sick sense of humor...but I digress.

Some of my favorite quickie downloadable simulation games are Youda Games. (Like Youda Farmer...You da farmer and game title AND a pun?! Yes!) Have you ever played these?! It's like the best of Harvest Moon meets Diner Dash meets SimCity! Some games are much better than others and like the Playfirst Games' Diner Dash franchise, Youda Games are simulation, time management flash cheapy games (as I refer to them-games that you can download for $10-ish.)

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I think Youda deserves a mention because I quite enjoy their games and I am struggling finishing out this A-Z challenge in a timely manner.  I know not all the posts in my alphabet were amazing pieces of writing, but I know that it fulfilled its intention which was to stretch my writing muscles every day and to challenge my creativity.  It did these things.  I know I didn't quite fulfill all of the requirements for participating in the challenge-I didn't complete it in the month of April, having started the challenge a couple weeks late due to PAX EAST; I didn't post every day due to that pesky thing I have called a job.  I thought at least some of these A-Z posts should revolve around gaming, so I chose Youda Games for today.  Plus it's just fun to say.  Youda. Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuda.

Phoned this one in methinks you have.

I hate you, Yoda-in-my-head.

Note: I'm blogging from the road for a few days with iffy Internet connection, so sorry for the infrequency of posts and the possibly questionable quality and rambly-ness of said posts.

P.S I wrote the majority of this post whilst sleep deprived riding on a bus crossing 3 state lines. No drugs were involved in the writing of this post. Does that answer your question?

X is for XBOX360 and why I prefer my Playstation (UPDATED)

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Ever since my first experience with how defensive other gamers could get during the console wars of the 1990's, I haven't really been hard core one side or the other. In the days of cartridge game systems, I was in love with my Genesis and I admit I scoffed at the idea that a console that used an optical disk could ever be better than a cartridge. I changed my opinion slightly the first time I played a Playstation. 

I was babysitting and had put the kids down for a nap/bedtime.  They didn't have cable and I had not brought a book or magazine to read, so I was bored after cleaning up the house (yes, I was an amazing babysitter, I also cleaned.) Bored obsessive gamer me noticed the kids had a Playstation.  I managed to hook it up to the TV and started playing the only game it looked like they had: Spyro. The graphics were so clean and crisp and the joystick controls, while it took a moment to get used to, were so smooth in comparison to my fumbly control pad of my Genesis, or the jerky joystick on my N64. Even though the loading screen irked me-with cartridge games there was no load time-I quickly got over it.  Ever since then, I remained fairly neutral about the console competition until I had personally tried one or the other.

That all being said, I LOVE my PS3, even when it succumbs to the YLoD, again and again. Boyfriend's co-worker/friend gave us his first gen XBox360 last year because he wanted a newer one, plus his had suffered from the "Red Ring of Death" and Boyfriend figured it would be cheaper to fix this one than buy a new one. Yay free console! (And it turned out to work just fine!) Currently we only have a couple of games for our XBox because we strongly prefer our PS3. The XBox controller is large and clunky especially for my tiny girl hands. The buttons get stuck (even after buying a new slightly smaller controller) and the user interface screen is not user-friendly, even if my avatar is super cute.  What really pisses me off the most about XBox/Microsoft is while generally the XBox360 tends to cost less than PS3 (with the exception of the awesome special edition Star Wars kinect console...not the game though...*sigh*) Microsoft is crafty in their ways. They find ways to make up for their console costing less. After our PS3 crapped out for the second or third time, we discovered that to watch Netflix streaming from our XBox, we have to upgrade to the "Gold member" account and pay a monthly fee.  
So, let me get this straight-I have to pay Netflix for the access to their streaming movies, PLUS I have to pay Microsoft to use the console that was already paid for just so I can watch said movies that I'm already paying for? I call bullshit. I've already had Netflix screw us out of a bunch of money by jacking up their prices despite having been a loyal customer for a long-ass time, I don't need Microsoft taking my hard-earned monies too. So there. PS3 is better. The end.

Wow, that was a bit of an angry rant.  I must be stressed out. More coffee!
Let's go kick ass today.

UPDATE: 5/17/12
Of course our PS3 would die the day after I write a shitty post professing its superiority to our XBox.  Why wouldn't it? *sigh* Seeing as how the rumors of the newest console from Sony seem to be just that, looks like we'll be saving our pennies for a new PS3. 'Tis a sad sad day.

V is for Vamping or Vorpmi

Vamp (verb)-To put together; fabricate or improvise

Vorpmi- Improv spelled backwards

We're coming down to the final days of A-Z Blogging challenge, and I'm sort of falling off the writing-everyday-wagon again. Sorry! My pesky job keeps getting in the way this week (you know, the place where people sleep at their desks, come in 20 minutes late every day and steal my birthday balloons because I was out sick and not there to defend them, and give said balloons to another employee on their birthday-I wish I was joking. *Sigh* That place.)  No matter. It's Thursday and every other Thursday Boyfriend and I get together with our friends and play Pathfinder. Tonight is a Pathfinder night! Huzzah!

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I am currently playing a half-elf Urban Druid named Bronwen. The name Bronwen is of Welsh origin and depending on your source, can translate to mean fair or blessed breast (heh, breast) and the variation of it can also mean white or blessed raven. My character Bronwen stands 5'9" tall and weighs around 135 lbs. Her slender athletic frame is covered in milky white skin which is juxtaposed by a full head of flowing charcoal hair. Being an Urban Druid, she is not quite as athletic or knowledgeable about nature as her forest brethren.  Her piercing green eyes always seem to hint that she knows something she 's not telling you. Bronwen's past is somewhat vague.  She knows very little of her parents, as they died mysteriously when she was quite young.  She was raised by a kindly human druid who was never blessed with a child of her own, but always wanted one.  Bronwen is very quiet and keeps mostly to herself, always having felt as though she was more welcome in the presence of animals than humans. She has never felt as though she quite fit in with humans or with elves, so she tends to keep to herself. She has found her druidic order to be the closest thing to a family in her life, but even there, she still feels a bit amiss.

She realizes that life in her settlement of Westcrown, in the infernal Cheliax, is not all it could be and with her alignment being neutral good, she has grown frustrated with the tyranny that comes with living underneath Hell's thumbnail. She has grown weary of the people living in misery due to the mismanagment from the Chelish nobility. She has grown sick of the fear that that the people of her settlment live in mostly due to lawfully evil hellknights andf the mysterious creatures that violently hunt the town at night.  Hearing hushed rumblings of the possibility of the existence of a small but growing uprising, Bronwen heads out one evening (hopefully returning home before sundown) to investigate these rumors. She gathers with many others at Vizio's Tavern for a secret meeting led by Janiven Key. Even before a plan can be set, hellknights descend upon the tavern intedning to arrest/dispatch any and all of thw conspiritors. After narrowly escaping into thwe sewers with several other townsfolk, Bronwen decides to join the grassroots movement as a member of the Children of Westcrown.

During our four sessions so far, we've encountered many foes who have almost beaten us, but somehow our band of misfits seems to prevail.  We've battled undead, hellknights, sewer goblins, and torch-wielding goblins intent on burning horses alive, all before we reached level 2 (that's right, we saved the ponies.) 

I love you, Allie.

U is for Uncolored Un-truthers



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Ok, so un-truthers is not really a word, but for all intents and purposes of this blog post, it is now!
I've mentioned before that I'm also an actor. It's what I went to school for, it's what I still enjoy doing, and my dream career would be something incorporating my love of video games/nerdy stuff, writing, and performance (much like my newly-appointed mentor, Felicia Day.) So this is another post about pimping out my friends and their/my creative projects.  Don't feel obligated to give to their Kickstarter campaign just because I'm in it (I know you all love me so much...all 3 of you reading this right now.) We're all starving nerds/artists right now, I get that, but if the video Imma bout to share makes you laugh and/or intrigues you, go check out the webseries' website or YouTube channel or vote for them on Funny or Die and maybe give a dollar if you feel so inclined (seriously, no pressure.) I think it's hilarious, hopefully you will too! Without further ado, I present the season 2 look at White Liars:



Like them!
Tweet them!

T is for Today

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Today is a new day. It's not yesterday, it's not tomorrow.  It's now. Not last week.  Now.  I can be anything I want to be today.  Today-Me is stronger, wiser, better than Yesterday-Me.  Tomorrow-Me will think the same thing about Today-Me, but that's not important yet. My only concern today is today.  It's good to have a plan, but I need to remind Today-Me to stop regretting and worrying and beating herself up because of what Yesterday-Me did or didn't do and stop fretting about how Tomorrow-Me will handle tomorrow. Today is important.  Today is what matters most right now. 

Last week, Friday-Me heard some unsettling-yet-not-entirely-unexpected news about something I'm not supposed to know about.  It has made Today-Me look at the world a little differently.  It made Friday and Saturday-Me a little scared, a little desperate, a lot angry, a little sad.  But Today-Me is strong. Today-Me is confident...ish. Today-Me knows she has the will-power and the stubborness to not get pushed around.  Today-Me is going to kick ass today. And Tomorrow-Me plans on doing the same but Today-Me is not going to worry about Tomorrow-Me today, she can handle herself because she will be stronger, wiser, better than Today-Me.

So, tell Today-You that it's Kick Today's Ass Day, because Today-Us suck less than Yesterday-Us!

#HappyISuckLessThanYesterdayDay.


May 7ths that historically sucked less than May 6ths:
1429 – Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning, wounded, to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.


1824 – World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer's supervision.

1846 – The Cambridge Chronicle, America's oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts

1847 – The American Medical Association is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1992 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its first mission (STS-49).

1994 – Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream is recovered undamaged after having been stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in February.

2012- Wikipedia writes most half of my blog post for me. Thanks Wiki!

S is for Star Wars

Star Wars Last Supper

Happy Star Wars Day!

I've heard some people say that Star Wars Day came about because A New Hope was released on May 4, 1977. This is not actually true.  A New Hope was first released in theaters in May 25, 1977 before the Memorial Day weekend. Geeks have adopted May 4th as Star Wars Day because of the pun "May the fourth be with you."

Did you know that we actually have the Brits and Margaret Thatcher to thank for the popularity of this pun? Margaret Thatcher was the first/only female prime minister elected to office.  Her election date? May 4, 1979.  After she won the election, her party took out an ad in the London Evening News saying, "May the fourth be with you, Maggie. Congratulations."

In 2005, George Lucas was giving an interview on German TV about  Star Wars and was asked about "May the force be with you." The interpreter apparently translated this to say "We will be with you on May 4th" and aired it on German TV. This may or may not have been the birth of Star Wars Day.  I can't actually find a "birth date" of this holiday.  Please feel free to enlighten me if anyone finds any factoids I any have missed about this day.  I leave you with this:

R is for Resloution (UPDATED)

Note: This blog is a day or two late.  I'm sort of falling off the wagon this week as far as writing every day.  I did write most of this post yesterday, I just wanted to go back and tweak it before publishing.  I'm warning you now, it's not a happy one.  It's not depressing, just a little bit angry. I think you'll understand why. Also, I would like to say that I am grateful to have a job when the economy and job market are not the best.  However, that doesn't mean I have to like going to work every day. Does it? These were my thoughts yesterday...

Resolution: noun

the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose.

I understand that in this economy and job market that competition is fierce and people are desperate, pressure is high, and everyone has to bring their "A" Game. But what do you do when your A-game doesn't seem to be enough for some people?  What do you do when you have a supervisor so far up your ass every day you can taste her hair spray?  What do you do when the very thought of having to answer another customer's phone call makes you have a nervous breakdown? Is a poor job market a valid excuse for staying at your job as a verbal punching bag year after year hoping and searching for something better? 

I'm all for helping your fellow wo/man when they need a helping hand, but when it comes to survival of the fittest in such a dog-eat-dog corporate world when your head  is threatened by the chopping block is it ok to throw someone under the bus if they deserve it? I don't like to play dirty if I don't have to, but I also don't want to have to live on unemployment and without health benefits again. But then, do I really want to stay in a place that is so big and cold that my manager doesn't actually even know (or care about) what I do on a day-to-day basis, only how she looks?  Do I want to work in an environment where someone that I'm supposed to "report" to every day sleeps at her desk without reprimand?  Do I really want to stay in a place where if I'm out sick for a few days someone my manager steals my birthday balloons because someone else had a birthday too? (I so wish I was kidding.) Which one is really the lesser of two evils here?

My therapist tells me she's very impressed with my progress and that she knows that I am intelligent, compassionate, and have a great work-ethic. I am stronger than I think I am. This goes back to my oar analogy from a few days ago. If held a lot of stock in "signs" from the universe, I would say that yesterday was a giant neon sign with a cattle prod poking me in the direction I should go.  I need to leave to go on to something better. I can see what I think is an oar floating out there, I just need to be brave enough to jump out of the boat.

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
-Franklin P. Jones

 

My bravery tattoo

P.S You know what also starts with R? Roaches! I am sick of those little bastards. There was a gargantuan one under our fridge the other night and another one was hiding in my coffee-maker. NOOOOO! Oh glorious magical brand new birthday present coffee maker!!! I will save you, coffee!

Dear Roaches,
This is your final warning. Leave my apartment or face retribution. Die demon seeds!!!
Smiles,
Jess